■ 

■ 

l I 



**:.., 



WM 



wm 



m 






'i'.f 












■i ESS 



■ HH 







^.0 






^ % 






c h/'r^^ & 



$ 



& 



4 






> 















9^ 



o> Q, 






V O - 



-Is 






' -- ALT _ 

' » « * \V O, , \V 



. <2e 



PW /%.^ : l\\^ : %<? 









<. 



E%^4 z 




^ % 



LI 


















^ ^ 







sS >> 



C u - 



•• ^^ 






^ °- 




. ^ 



'/ , 






: 






^0^ 






"^ A z 









•: «L O rS? v * ii . <L» -Pi- 



% 



..•G v 



^ 0°' * " '" ° / - "^ 



<. 



\^ ^ \^ r ^ '' . ' A^ % 



^ °- 



^ % 



COLLECTED PAPERS ON THE 
PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 



COLLECTED PAPERS 

ON THE 

PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 



BY 

DR. CONSTANCE E. LONG 

<> 

LATE SENIOR ASSISTANT ELIZABETH GARRETT ANDERSON HOSPITAL; LATE MBDICAL OFFICER, 
EDUCATION BOARD J EX-PEESIDENT ASSOCIATION OF REGISTERED MEDICAL WOMEN 



NEW YORK 

MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 
1921 






tf-v/if 



PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN 



?* 



PREFACE 

I have often been asked to publish the following papers in 
book form. I have at length done so, chiefly because they 
deal with points that are matters of constant inquiry. 

In a collection of papers of this sort there is inevitably 
a good deal of repetition. I regret this, but it is always 
open to readers to skip passages, whereas those who are 
unfamiliar with the terms of analytical psychology will find 
the repetition not without value. 

It will easily be seen by those to whom it is not already 
known, that I am an adherent of Jung's school of analytical 
psychology, but I have neYer concealed my great admiration 
of Freud's work, nor minimized the debt we owe to him for 
his opportune discovery of dream analysis, and for the 
formulation of his illuminating theories of neurosis. 

The adherents of the Swiss School use Freud's technique 
of dream analysis, and do not repudiate any of his discovered 
facts, but they repudiate the claim of some of his disciples 
that he and his school are in possession of the whole truth. 
They are unable to believe that his interpretation of the 
facts is always as unimpeachable as the facts themselves. 

The great value of dream analysis, and the real import- 
ance of the discovery, are attested by the fact that the results 
can be applied in many very different fields of work. The 
method has approved itself whenever investigators have had 
sufficient knowledge and skill to do justice to it. 

The Freudians are anxious that the term psycho-analysis 
should be reserved for their special school. As a practical 
matter it is almost impossible completely to disentangle 
psycho-analysis from analytical psychology, because having 
sprung from a common root they are closely bound together. 



vi PREFACE 

Just as analytical psychology is indebted to Freud for its 
origin, so in turn the Freudians are quietly incorporating 
in their writings some of the findings of the Swiss School. 
This may, be an unconscious assimilation, or it may equally 
well be that they are arriving independently at similar 
conclusions. 

In my last reading of Freud's B Dream Interpretation " 
I was forcibly struck by the fact that many ideas are implicit 
in it which, when presented from outside, he and his disciples 
are fain to controTert. This implicitness is characteristic of 
a work of genius. That the author should be blind to much 
that is in his own creation is no new thing, and further 
discoveries must not be regarded as a breach of patent. 

It was my good fortune to obtain my first insight into 
the unconscious mind with Dr. Jung's help, an experience 
which has earned my lasting appreciation. "While the follow- 
ing papers afford an introduction to his views, I do not 
pretend to represent them at all adequately. I have pointed 
out certain major differences between the two schools, but 
in any case, those who write on psycho-analysis or analytical 
psychology will inevitably bring their own subjective views 
to bear when they attempt to explain psychological theories- 
However desirous we may be to assume the contrary, 
analysts, and analytical writers, though presumably enlight- 
ened, are just as prone as others to the common human 
prejudices. Unless we are on our guard this can easily be 
the case, because analysis can never really empty the un- 
conscious mind. Xew material is always being created, and 
fresh repressions can arise, particularly while we are giving 
too exclusive attention to those which are already unearthed. 

Perhaps one of Jung's most valuable ideas is that of the 
compensatory function of the unconscious mind. He regards 
it as being the creative mind, and as having a balancing 
tendency also. Thus repression is not referred to sexuality 
and the primitive instincts alone, but to all the neglected and 
under-valued material belonging to the various psychological 
functions of thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition. What- 
ever is repressed, or under-expressed, links itself up with 



PEEFACE vii 

unconscious elements. From the psychic tension produced 
between what is conscious and what is unconscious, the 
phantasies arise, representing in symbolic form what is missing 
from conscious consideration. The symbols so created are 
functionally useful as indicating not only the cause of error, 
but the way of progress. Dream and phantasy are thus 
regarded as valuable functions of the psyche. In order to 
avail ourselves of these functions, reasonable contact with the 
unconscious mind is to be sought through analysis, and should 
be maintained when analysis is over. This view provides a 
most hopeful outlook for the future of psychotherapy. 

I have called my book the "Psychology of Phantasy." 
It was not until I had collected these papers together that 
I realized how much the subject of phantasy had occupied 
me in the last four years. A candid friend, who is an 
academic psychologist, bade me refrain from using such a 
title, saying that the book had nothing to do with psychology. 
However, I have retained it, because to my mind the book 
deals with an aspect of phantasy to which academic psycho- 
logy is paying considerable attention at present. At the 
same time I warn my readers they will find in it nothing 
about such matters as " the relation of imagination to percep- 
tion," etc. I approach the subject solely from the standpoint 
of medical psychology, and from direct experience and obser- 
vation of the unconscious mind. It would seem to me both 
unfitting and unnecessary to dwell upon a side with which 
the academic psychologist knows, so very much better than I, 
how to deal. 

I take this opportunity of thanking my friends, Dr. 
Eleanor Bertine and Mrs. M. C. Clare, for their criticism 
and help, and also Miss Joan Corrie for kindly correcting 
the proofs. 

48, Gobdon Squaee, W.C. 1. 
October, 1920. 



CONTENTS 

PAFEB PAGE 

Peeface V 

Quotation fbom De. Jung ox " Psychological Types " . si 

I. Mental Conflicts in Childben 1 

II. Evidences of the Unconscious Mind in the Child . 16 

III. Fbab in the Child and the Authobity Complex , . 40 

IT. Unconscious Factoes affecting Discipline ... 61 

V. The usb of Subliminal Mateeial in Analytical 

Psychology 77 

VI. The Censoe and Unconscious Symbolism in Deeams . 109 

VII. Sex as a Basis of Chabactee 127 

VTII. Unconscious Factobs in Sex Education .... 144 

IX. The Significance of Phantasy in the Pboduction of 

THE PSYCHONEUBOSES ....... 160 

X. Eeyiew of " The Psychology of the Unconscious " . 182 

XI. Psychological Adaptation 195 

Index 211 



"... Idea and thing meet in man's psyche, which holds the 
balance between them. What is the idea, indeed, if the psyche 
does not endow it with vital value? What is the objective thing 
if the psyche withdraws the conditioning power of the perceptual 
impression? What is reality if it be not an actually existing 
thing in us, an esse in anima ? Living reality is not exclusively 
reached through the actual objective relation of things, nor 
through the formulating of ideas, but only through the compre- 
hension of both in the living psychological process, the esse in 
anima. Only through the specifically vital activity of the psyche 
does sense-perception attain that depth of impression, and the 
idea that operating power, both of which are indispensable to 
Vicing reality. . . . TJie psyche creates subjective reality daily, 
and I cannot call this activity by any other name than phantasy. 
Phantasy contains as much of feeling as of thought, it is just 
as intuitive as it is perceptive. There is in it no psychic 
function which is not inextricably mingled with other psychic 
functions. It appears at one time as primordial, at another 
as the last and most striking product of a.U accumulated know- 
ledge. . . . 

Phantasy is the creative activity which gives birth to the 
answers to all questions admitting of answers. It is the mother 
of all possibilities in which . . . the inner and the outer world 
are united in a living whole. It was, and always is, phantasy 
which builds the bridge between the irreconcilable claims of the 
object and of the subject, of extroversion and introversion. 
In phantasy alone are both processes united. . . . 

Phantasy is for the most part a product of the unconscious. 
It does indeed contain elements of consciousness, but for all that it 
is a special characteristic that it is essentially spontaneous, and 
quite foreign to the conscious content. It shares this quality in 
common with the dream, though the latter is wholly involuntary 



and far more bizarre in character. A man's relation to his 

phantasy is largely governed by his relation to the unconscious in 
general. Tliis relation in its turr. depends in a special way 
upon the spirit of the age. According to the degree of ration- 
alism prevailing, an individual will be the more, or the less 
inclined tol>e influenced by his unconscious and its products. . . . 
Intellect remains imprisoned within itself so long as it does 
not voluntarily sacrifice its supremacy, and admit the value 
of other claims. It shrinks from taking a step beyond 
itself, and will not allow that it does not possess universal 
validity, for everything outside its own view k nothing but 
phantasy. But 'what great thing has there ever been that was 
not phantasy first ? . . . Every happy idea and every crea: 
act had its leginniny in ;':/:.::::'.:, .":;::" what we are 

accustomed to call childish fancy. Xot only the artist but every 
creator owes to phantasy everything that is greatest in his life. 
The dynamic lasis of phantasy lies in its playfulness, which 
is suited to childhood, and thus appears irreconcilable with 
serious work. Yet without this play of no creative work 

has ever seen the <;"::. It must not be forgotten that what is 
most valuable in a man mo. filiation. I say • may 

He,' for on the other hand phantasies in themselves are practi- 
cally worthless, since in the form of raw material they possess 
merely potential value.'' — C. G-. Jrse.. " Psychological Types/' 
1920. 



COLLECTED PAPEKS ON THE 

PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

i 

MENTAL CONFLICTS IN CHILDEEN 1 

Since Professor Freud launched his psycho -analytic theories 
upon the world some twenty-five years ago, a most valuable 
instrument for the examination of the mind of the child has 
been put into our hands. That these theories arose in the 
line of medical research does not detract from their peda- 
gogical application, for it is disclosed to us that the child- 
mind still persists in the adult, in the unconscious realm of the 
psyche. 

Psycho-analysis is a method of treating psychical illnesses, 
such as hysteria and other neuroses which are based upon 
unconscious mental conflicts. By its practice extensive know- 
ledge of the processes going on in the subliminal regions of 
the personality is acquired. Psychical illness arises in the 
realm of ideas rather than in the physical factors. The un- 
conscious ideas express themselves in bodily symptoms, which 
are a result and not the cause of the illness. Freud claimed 
that the root cause of all neurosis of later life is to be found 
in the first five years of childhood. 

It is rare to meet a broken-down man or woman who does 
not attribute most of the mental and physical difficulties of 
life to incidents and influences of childhood. This is the 
conscious view, and when we deal with the individual analy- 
tically, we find it confirmed and more profoundly important in 
the view of the unconscious. 

1 Address delivered at the Teachers' Guild of Great Britain and Ireland. 
•Jannarv, 1916. RevLed. 

1 



2 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

The unconscious is all that exists in the psyche, of which 
we are not aware at a given moment. It has been compared 
with the submerged part of an iceberg, which greatly exceeds 
in bulk the part floating above the sea level. Whatever 
floats above the surface represents the conscious part of the 
mind. It is conceivable that an iceberg may turn over, or 
about, owing to the melting or the parting of its fragments, 
and another portion will then come uppermost. So with the 
personality — now one part is conscious, now another, a little at 
a time — and some portions never reach consciousness at all. 

The unconscious, the subconscious, or the subliminal (as it 
is called by different authors), contains all our memories from 
our earliest existence to the present, 1 All that has happened 
to us continues to exist. At any given moment we use, or are 
conscious of using, comparatively few memories ; vast stores 
remain untouched in the subliminal regions — as Samuel 
Butler says, 2 " The life of a creature is the memory of a 
creature ; we are all the same stuff to start with, but we 
remember different things ; if we did not do so, we should be 
absolutely like each other." Therefore every time we come 
in touch with another person, it is the contact merely between 
two small knowns and two huge unknowns. This doubtless 
accounts for many of the misunderstandings that arise between 
any two persons, no matter how great their goodwill. This is 
true of our contact with the child. Let him beware who thinks 
he fathoms the mind of the child. It is possible to do so, 
of course, to an extent, but only by taking the unconscious 
into serious consideration as well as the conscious. The child 
at the school age is already a complex being, full of memories, 
not only of facts but also of the inventions of his imagination 
— dreams, phantasies, and the like. For him the cardboard 
box was the ammunition waggon, or the big sofa a liner on the 
ocean. He has phantasies or imaginings about his father, 
and his mother, and his God, about his teachers and himself, 

1 The racial memories are also stored as potentialities in the psyche. The 
view that the unconscious mind is the result of repression only, is not accepted 
by the author, and is discussed later on. 

a " Life and Habit." Fifield. 






MEXTAL CONFLICTS IN CHILDREN 3 

and lie does not by any means always discriminate between 
fact and fancy. These phantasies influence his conduct to 
a much greater extent than is generally supposed, none the 
less that they are unconscious productions, and their meaning 
is hidden from him, just as it is from parent and teacher. 
Phantasies act upon the child much like the memories of 
experiences • they have " the same psychic value." l Some- 
times they are more real to him than reality itself. 

A great deal of emotion is attached to the phantasies 
which are an expression and a gratification of the emotional 
needs of the individual ; and when they cease to be remem- 
bered, and are carried or dragged down into the unconscious, 
much of their emotional tone is carried down too. Nothing 
happens to us that does not produce a definite emotional 
reaction, such as love, hate, jealousy, approval, acquies- 
cence, indifference, or desire. Nor do these states of feeling 
exist simply and singly, but contain certain mixed elements 
and opposing tendencies, such as love and hate, trust and 
distrust. 

The presence of the emotional factors can be demon- 
strated in a simple way as often as one will take the 
trouble by means of the psychological experiment known 
as the word-association test. Drs. Jung and Eiklin published 
some work in 1904 on the application of the association 
method to unconscious mental processes. 2 The work was 
particularly valuable because from a completely different angle 
of observation it confirmed what Freud had discovered through 
his use of dream analysis. " This confirmation by experi- 
mental methods compelled many who had hitherto looked 
askance at the psycho-analytic theories to investigate the 
phenomena for themselves " (Eder). 

In this test a list of about one hundred words is given to the 
person to be examined ; " the words are called out one by one, 
and are carefully selected, and partially arranged in such 
a manner as to strike easily almost all the common groups of 

1 See " Dream Interpretation." Freud. 

2 " Studies in Word Association." Authorised translation by Dr. M. D. 
Eder. Heinemann, 1918. 



4 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

associated ideas. 1 Before the test begins the person under 
examination is told to answer as quickly as possible with the 
first word that comes into his head." The answering word or 
phrase is called his "reaction." This seems to be a very 
simple process, and with a little patience it is a thing that 
even a child or a feeble-minded person can do. But, in spite 
of that, it is by no means as simple as it looks. The reason 
it is not simple is because of the ideas which are constellated 
in the unconscious mind. No idea exists singly — it has roots 
and connections spreading to many other ideas — but certain 
ideas tend to group themselves together, so that if you touch 
one of the ideas in the group, other members of the group or 
constellation are stimulated, and the emotional current travels 
in all associated directions. Such a group of associated ideas 
Jung calls a Complex. 2 Such complexes exist in conscious- 
ness. For example, a child decides to make a little museum 
of his own, and he begins to collect and beg all sorts of things 
for his new enterprise, he thinks of it by day, and dreams of 
it by night ; this may be called his a museum complex " ; he 
now begins to have desires for many things, and finds means 
of acquiring them — probably not all of them honest. Perhaps 
fossils take his fancy, and he becomes aware there are certain 
specimens in the cabinet in the drawing-room — he annexes 
one or two, and now his museum grows, but he is also aware 
of a certain growing uneasiness, so that a new and painful 
emotional feeling is added to the feelings already con- 
stellated about the museum-idea. He resorts to devices 
to hide his guilt. Perhaps his feelings become so unpleasant 
that he decides to give up the museum and forget about 
his sins, or a stern parent discovers his theft, and in 
high moral indignation, descends upon him with a cane. 
This brings his interest in his museum to an end — he 
covers his hurt feelings, and tries to forget all about it. 
The ideas around this museum complex have now become 
distinctly painful, and it is pushed out of mind as completely 

1 See "Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology." Jung. BaiUiere, 
Tindall & Cos. 

- See a " Psychology of Dementia Prsecos." Monograph Series. 



MENTAL CONFLICTS IN CHILDREN 5 

as possible, pushed, that is, into the unconscious. He succeeds 
in forgetting all about it, and yet, years after, the word 
" fossil " or the opening of the drawing-room cabinet, or the 
clearing of the paternal throat, will give him an uncomfortable 
sensation ; he cannot think why. It is because the constel- 
lated ideas and emotions still exist in the unconscious, and 
something so-called accidental has set them vibrating. 

The word-association test takes advantage of the fact of the 
existence of these repressed emotions in the unconscious, for 
their presence has striking effects. When the test is applied, 
the length of time between the test or stimulus word and the 
answering word is noticed, and recorded as a " time reaction " ; 
that is the time taken in reacting. Then later on the same 
list is used again, and changes in the replies, that is, changes in 
their reproduction, are noticed. As a rule the same word is 
used in the reply as before. Very long reaction times, or very 
unusual reactions, and failures to reply at all, as well as faulty 
reproductions and various other things, evidence that an 
emotional complex of importance is aroused by the stimulus 
word. No matter how determined a person is to conceal his 
mental conflict he is unable to control the process in his 
unconscious. The " word " is the symbol for something that 
exists psychically. It strikes a real memory picture, and has 
in a degree the same effect as the scene itself. 

Jung cites a case of a theft in an institution. The suspected 
persons were all subjected to a word-association test, and the 
guilty one was tracked down from the evidence obtained ; 
she afterwards confessed the theft, thus confirming the 
experiment. A great deal of exact scientific work has been 
done upon this subject, which repays careful study. The 
purpose of introducing it here is to give a concrete example of 
what has previously been said, that an individual is made up 
of memories ; not only of facts but of phantasies too. 

The following are reactions to twenty-five words, given by 
three children aged respectively 7, 11, and 4. The little girls 
of 7 and 11 were exceedingly poor, of Jewish race, and had 
been rescued from degraded surroundings. From these 
reactions we get some notion of their ruling ideas, which 



6 



PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 



would be impossible in children brought up under happier 
conditions. 

The third child of 4 years and 5 months came from entirely 
different surroundings, is a " well brought up child " in 
comfortable circumstances. 



Fanny {set. 7). 



Stimulus 






Word. 


Reaction. 


Reproduction. 


Dog. 


. Frightens . 


. Fright. 


Work 


To go to work when the bell rings To go to work when the bell rings. 


•Girl . 


. Play wif her 


. When she plays wif her. 


Mouse 


A pussy bites it 


. A pussy bites it. 


Stick 


. It 'its yer 


. It 'its yer. 


Chair 






To rub 


. Wash the floor . 


. Wash the floor. 


J - l oo • 


Cook it 


. To cook. 


To steal 






Babies 






Sleep 






Hand 


Touch sornefink 


. Touch sornefink. 


Sin . 


When you swear 


. . When you swear. 


Key. 


Open the door . 


. Open the door. 


Room 


Sweep 


. Sweep. 


Money 


Buy sornefink . 


. Buy sornefink. 


Fruit 


To eat 


. To eat. 


Tea, . 






Cow. 


To mind the sheep 


. The sheep. 


♦Pure 


. Nil . 


. Coke. 


Jam 


To make bread and b 


utter . To take the bread, cut it, and 
put the jam on. 


School 




school. 


Good 


. Prize 


. Prize. 


♦Hungry 


. When you ain't got n( 


mnk to eat When you ain't got nofink to eat. 


Carpet 


. To put round your n 


2ck . . Nil. 


Fire 


. To make your hands 


warm . Nil. 


Coal 


. Coke . 


. Coal comes from God ; (who) 
makes you ; makes your shoes ; 
makes clothes ; lives up a hill. 



Saeah (&t. 11). 



Dog. . Some dogs bite you . 
Work . Some people go to work 



. The dogs bite you. 
. The men go to work. 



• The reaction time is particularly long in these words marked with an 
asterisk. 



CENTAL CONFLICTS IX CHILDBEX 



Stimulus 

Word. Beaciion. 

Girl. , A giil does cleaning?. 

Mouse . A mouse gnaws the bread 

Stick . You hit everybody with a stick 

Chair . You sit on a chair . 

*To rub . We rub our hands . 

Egg . , We eat an egg . 

♦To steal . Some gir — boys steal 

Babies . The baby cries . 

Sleep . We go to sleep at night 

Hand . We eat with our hand 

Key . . We unlock the door with a key 

Boom . People walk in the room 

Money . We hold money in hands 

Sin . , God gives us a sin . 

Pure . The mWk is pure 

Cow , We have pure mi IV from a 

Tea . . We drink tea 

Good . We have good things 

Fruit . Fruit is good 

Jam . Jam is good 

School , We go to school 

Hungry . We go hungry . 

Carpet . On the floor is the carpet 

Fire . The fire is alight 

Coal . The coal is burning . 



Eeproduction. 
A girl cleans. 
A mouse gnaws the bread. 
We hit people with a stick. 
You sit on a chair. 
We rub our hands. 
We eat an egg. 
We steal — vegetables. 
The baby cries. 
We go to sleep at night. 
We warm our hands. 
We open the door with a key. 
We walk in the room. 
We have money in our pockets. 
We have a sin (telling lies). 
The tea is pure. 

We have pure milk from a cow. 
We drink tea. 
We have good milk. 
Fruit is not bad. 
Jam is pure. 
We go to school. 
The dog is hungry. 
The carpet is white. 
The fire is burning. 
The coal gives flames. 



Jabee {set. 4 years 5 months;. 



Dog. 


. Bite .... 


. Bites. 


Work 






Girl. 


. Janet .... 


. Dresses. 


Mc\ise 






= :::> 






Chair 






To rub 


. Rubbing girlies . 


. Little children. 


Z - ~ 


. Chicken lay . 


. . Chicken lays. 


To steal 


. Do you mean to steal 


a knife Do you mean to steal a chickie 




or to steal something 


to eat or a pig or something ? 


Babies 


. Babies have bottles . 


. Have bottles. 


Sleep 






Hand 


. Hands hold 


. Work. 


Key. 


, Opens door 


. Goes in the door. 


R:;:a 


. Beds in room 


. Bed in. 


Money 


. Buys .... 


. Buys. 


Sun. 


. Sun does not come out and sun Lights us. 




does 





* The reaction time is particularly long in these words marked with an 
asterisk. 



PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 



Stbnulus 




Word. 


Reaction. Reproduction. 


Sin . 


I don't know what sin means . What is sin ? 


Pure 


. I don't know what pure is : I don't know what pure is. 




what is it ? 


Tea . 


. We eat and drink . . . Tea to eat or tea to drink ? 


Cow . 


. Sends milk .... Lays milk. 


Good 


Good girlies .... Little children. 


Fruit 


, Grows on trees .... Grows on trees. 


Jam 


Grows from strawberries and From strawberries and fruit. 




things 


School 


Children go to school . . Little children go to school. 


Hungry . 


Little children want food when Poor little children, 




they are hungry 


Carpet 


Goes on the floor . . . Goes on the floor and peopL 




walk on it. 


Fire 




Coal 


Coal men bring coal. I don't Coal comes from coal sweepers. 




know where the coal comes 




from 



The young child lives very close to the unconscious, and 
the mechanisms are very clearly seen. What becomes plain 
from these answers is that they are all determined by the 
memory contents of the mind, and are inevitably just what 
they are, and that emotional causes, to a much greater extent 
than intellectual ones, account for them. Compare, for 
instance, the answers to the word "stick." The little slum-bred 
children may never have seen one growing. The third child 
had no conception of its use as an instrument of punishment. 

To understand the mental conflicts of children we must 
look at their emotional life. Whether we regard them from 
the standpoint of teacher or doctor, we must take into account 
the enormous importance of the home — either in its positive 
or its negative aspect. Teachers sometimes say, " I could do a 
great deal with that child were it not for home influences." 
Doctors too feel they could cure him if his environment could 
be changed. But this represents exactly what we have to 
do— to teach or to heal, in spite of other influences. 

The meaning of certain kinds of so-called naughtiness — 
hatred of certain lessons, special forgetfulness, repetition of 
identical mistakes, inability to get on with certain teachers or 
classmates — may have its origin in the remote causes of 



3IENTAL CONFLICTS IN CHILDREN 9 

parental influence. As the father or mother thinks or acts 
towards snch and such a person or thing, so unconsciously 
thinks and acts the child. Say the father thinks little of a 
certain study or teacher, or the mother savs she sot on verv 
well without knowing such and such a thing— just in so far as 
the child's psychology is adapted to the parents', there will 
be unconscious imitation of their attitude. This is of 
immense importance ; the child behaves as he thinks in his 
infantile way the parent would behave. 

The whole emotional life of the individual follows a curve, 
and one should be at a given place on this curve at a given 
epoch. The earliest emotions are egocentric, the babe is his 
own centre : next comes the mother, who represents " gratifica- 
tion in nutrition." 1 and is the first external object of love; 
next the father enters the infantile horizon, as an element of 
power that can raise or depress the infant joy. Then brothers 
and sisters, nurses, and so forth ; then comes school life, which 
is designed to wean the child from his sole dependence on the 
family, and carry him from the home to the world, bringing 
over his emotions from the infantile to the adolescent stage. 
Next comes business or college life— the call and the drive to 
maturity, and to the main tasks of life, the creative years, 
begetting and rearing children, the making of the business 
or professional life, tailing off into the quieter years of declin- 
ing ambition, but of greater valuation of the individual him- 
self; and finally the withdrawing again into the self, when, if 
the body- structure lasts too long, there is a development of 
second childishness. 

Theoretically this emotional curve should be smooth: practi- 
cally it is anything but smooth : there are dashes forward 
towards precocity, lapses into backwardness, and many kinds 
of deviations. 

The teacher is, in any case, quite unable to disregard the 
immense importance of the emotional relation between parent 
and child. Even when the child is in happy and normal 
relationship in his home and with his teachers, he makes a 
transference of a large part of his emotional values on to the 
1 -Tung, ** Psychoanalysis," Monograph Series, No. 19. 



10 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

teacher, who now in a sense replaces the parent as an authority. 
The importance of this emotional transference is not fully 
realised. It may be of a positive or of a negative kind — i.e. 
liking or love, dislike or hate. 

Children who have broken down in conduct at school are 
sometimes brought to the doctor. The breakdown is often 
caused by a misunderstanding, not always on the child's side 
only. The unredeemed psychology of the teacher can get in 
the way. A word or a smile, a little yielding, will sometimes 
win a campaign that otherwise might drag on indefinitely in 
mutual hostility. On the other hand, judicious severity, the 
transmutation of a sentimental emotion into real feelings, even 
of a painful kind, can bring home very necessary lessons to a 
young heart. 

Sometimes it is necessary to let the child fall into com- 
plete error before it can find its own way. Too much shepherd- 
ing is bad, how can the child realise that its wishes and 
desires are on a wrong path while the crook constantly draws 
it back into the right one ? A child is not a lamb ! Many a 
stormy trouble would be over sooner if it were allowed to 
burst. Then the child does something really wrong, and has 
its overt acts as well as its inner light to point the moral. 
Over-correction cripples the energy, it leads to repression and 
promotes the fermenting of trouble in the dark, which bursts 
out of the unconscious in irresponsible acts, such as lying and 
thieving. It is better far for the child to do wrong deliberately, 
than for it to be impelled to it by unconscious motives. 

The good teacher should be like the skilled gymnast in 
ju-jitsu, he should make the enemy's force serve his end. 
He receives the blow, and in receiving directs the energy so 
that it overthrows the attacker, not the attacked. If the child 
is overthrown by himself, as the calm and self-possessed 
teacher meets his passion with skill, then the pupil learns his 
lesson, and picks himself up to fight better in future, and 
apply himself to his aim with more humility and foresight. 

Those teachers are most successful who have learned to 
deal with their own lives, and whose own main stream of 
energy is flowing easily and fully in a forward direction. 



MENTAL CONFLICTS IN CHILDEEN 11 

They give out of their fullness. The pupil is unconsciously 
attending to what they are, and will begin to behave himself 
as he thinks the teacher behaves, now exchanging him for 
the paternal ideal. The child reads the teacher intuitively, 
and, whether one likes it or not, this fact is very important. 
The good teacher uses this power either consciously or uncon- 
sciously, but fortunately although this transference of love to 
the teacher carries the pupil past many a difficulty, it does not 
prevent him from having to exercise personal effort, for the 
child must come up to the teacher's standard. The teacher, 
however, is always retiring from the ground to which he entices 
his pupil, so that he is never reached ; and in the meantime, 
what is valuable is becoming the possession of the pupil. He 
is gaining the power that he sees in the teacher, within, and 
for himself. 

Much childish naughtiness is due to unconscious resist- 
ances ; that is, a feeling within the self against a task or a 
teacher to which the child cannot give a clue — he does not 
recognise these resistances for what they are. He thinks he 
" cannot do his work, his task is too hard," or that his " teacher 
is unjust." 

There is often a conscious effort to do the right thing, but 
a pull from the unconscious towards the wrong. He is at the 
mercy of opposing feelings. Sometimes in judging motives 
we are almost constrained to feel a person does a thing because 
he wishes to do its exact opposite (we see this very markedly 
in the action of certain lunatics). In the normal individual 
this conflict depends upon the presence of associated memories 
in the unconscious, and not only with memories of actual facts 
and experiences, but also of the ruling phantasies. These con- 
stellated memories, forming the complexes, have a painful 
content in common, and they act somewhat independently or 
out of harmony in the psyche ; there is exquisite sensitiveness 
to stimulation of any part of the constellation — thus an attack 
of irritability or an explosion of temper may be due not so 
much to the nature of the stimulus itself, as to the vibration 
set up in the constellated emotions in the unconscious. 

There is another point of importance I would venture to 



12 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

touch upon, as vitally concerning my subject, and tliat is tlie 
great difference in psychological types to be seen in human 
beings. 

William James, in " Pragmatism," has defined these two 
types as the tough and the tender-minded. The terms used 
here are those introduced by Dr. Jung, of Zurich, who charac- 
terises the tough-minded as extravert, the tender-minded as 
introvert. 1 

Whether a person is extra Yerted or introverted depends upon 
whether the prevailing interest of life, or the main current of 
libido is directed outwards to the object, or inwards to the ego. 
The extravert tends to get lost in materialism. The external 
world, persons, things, and causes are very attractive to him, the 
life of thought and the cultivation of the inward eye being of 
less moment. The extravert is enthusiastic, outgoing, adven- 
turous in deeds, apt to undertake enterprises with too little 
thought as to their justification or value. His libido carries 
him to the object, he is apt to be a busybody in affairs, or to 
be busy about the wrong thing, he believes in himself, and is 
not hindered by self-criticism, hence he often makes a better 
show in the world than he actually deserves ; he is always more 
interested in things than the ultimate tendency of things. 

The tender-minded, or the introverted type, adapts himself 
with more difficulty to his surroundings, preferring his own 
inner world of thought and his own ideas to anything that is 
thrust upon him from without. He is very sensitive, self- 
oonscious, and personal in his way of feeling — too thin-skinned 
and tender-minded to enjoy his contact with his fellows, or 
feel quite rightly about them. He is reserved and difficult 
of access, timid in taking up enterprises, his critical faculty is 
over-developed, and he is paralysed by it when he wishes 
to produce his work, because his ideas so far excel his 
capacity for expression, and his brilliant promises are apt to 

1 In the formulation of these two types Dr. Jung was aware that other 
types existed. His whole conception of the types has undergone a reformula- 
tion since he made his first contribution (see "Analytical Psychology," 
chap. si.). He no longer regards the extravert as the feeling type, and the 
introvert as the thinking type, but finds both the thoughts and feelings turn 
to the object in the one, and to the ego in the other. 



3IEXTAL CONFLICTS IX CHILDREN 13 

come to nothing, partly because he cannot bear to make 
mistakes, and therefore he makes nothing at all. 

These types exist in all degrees of mixture. In religion 
they are represented by "faith and works": an excess of 
either means a deficit of the other. All individuals lean to 
one type or the other. You see the tendency in the youngest 
infant ; one accepts your blandishments with a smile, and 
wants to play with you ; the other turns away, will have 
nothing to do with you, and is only won by waiting. 

Each child brings with it an extra verted or an introverted 
psychology. The extravert is the more adaptable, the 
introvert more thinking and apprehensive. A former type 
can be more effectively reached through the object, the 
latter by an appeal to the idea. One will make many friends, 
the other few. The sins of the extravertel child will be those 
of commission, those of the introverted will be those of 
omission. 

The aim of education should not be to obliterate the types. 
but to understand and develop each out of its strength. If 
we convert the one into the other we make a cruel mistake, 
because we work against the main stream of the child's 
energy ; yet it is obvious the introvert must be lured from 
the ego, and the extravert from the object, not by driving them 
out of themselves, but by developing the less valuable function 
in each. Let me give an example. A woman came to me 
suffering from an introversion neurosis. The home of her 
childhood had been a very unhappy one, full of privations. 
She was richly endowed with beautiful imaginative thoughts, 
and poorly endowed with practical feelings. She was a 
promising and brilliant scholar, and gained much attention and 
praise at schooL At home her poor little efforts at loving and 
serving met with rebuff after rebuff. Her parents were at 
variance, and love was not called out in the home. She 
developed her best life at school, where she met with a great 
deal of encouragement. The ambitious ideas of the teachers 
began to be projected on the child. "' She will bring us much 
credit." they said, and she was naturally pushed on to take 
scholarships. She finally reached college — again her brilliance 



14 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

won respect — and it was felt " she will bring us credit," and 
with this end in view she was pushed on to undertake work 
involving an enormous amount of extraversion — immense 
acquisitiveness was demanded for the task imposed, which was to 
bring; back credit to her college. So the life of thought, which 
was her strong point, was of necessity pushed aside ; there was no 
time to follow the development that would have been natural 
to her. What happened? She gained great credit for her 
college and obtained a high place, but the original work 
expected from her came to nothing ; her critical sense pre- 
vented her from doing what she could, and she could not do 
what she would, because she had no energy available. The 
distinction she had achieved irked her, and required far too 
much adaptation from her, because it demanded that she 
should lead a life that was not in accordance with her psycho- 
logy. Her passionate longiug to follow her nature (which she 
had incidentally lost sight of to a great extent), and the 
necessity of following the life the unwise pushing of others 
and her own ambition had imposed upon her, brought about a 
terrible conflict, and a neurosis supervened, which made her 
ineffectual, ill, and unhappy. 

This is typical of many similar tragedies, where a pre- 
cocious child is sacrificed to the ambitions of parents or 
teachers. The child, in virtue of his childishness, is not in a 
position to discriminate, and only too easily succumbs to the 
line of fame. The child in question belonged to the intro- 
verted type, and was forced into excessive extraversion, and 
fell between two stools. 

The wisdom of the teacher should have been directed to 
developing that promising young life in the direction of its 
own main-stream. Does not the machinery of education leave 
too little room for the cultivation of what is out of the common ? 
Teachers must look out for their own complexes here, for what 
is best for the child is often disadvantageous for the teacher, 
and that is why he who has learnt to deal with his own life, and 
put the accent on the real values, will make the best teacher. 

Not only do children belong to these two different types, 
but teachers also. The opposite types do not very easily 



MENTAL CONFLICTS IX CHILDEEN 15 

understand one another, although, as we know, opposites 
attract one another, and are complementary the one to the 
other. It is well to study this question ; it gives a view 
which repays some expenditure of time and has a practical 
bearing upon the mental conflicts of children. It is a means 
of helping them to understand themselves, and to get the best 
out of themselves. But as Jung himself says, " The task of 
elaborating a psychology which pays equal attention to the 
two type3 of mentality belongs to the future." 1 

i " Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology," p. 293. 



II 

EVIDENCES OF THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND IN 
THE CHILD 1 

We have long known that the most important time in the 
nurture of the child is that in which its brain is increasing in 
size and its body in weight at a greater rate than in any- 
subsequent period of its growth. 

Its early psychical development is of equal consequence. 
The first impressions made on the infant mind are of enormous 
significance. They become a kind of pattern for subsequent 
experience printed off again and again. It is also a matter of 
common observation and intuitive knowledge that the mental 
states of the pregnant woman and the nursing mother have 
far-reaching effects on the character of the offspring. The 
normal infant arrives in the world already in possession 
of a highly differentiated brain, but with as yet no differ- 
entiated mental functions, although the potentialities of all 
future developments exist in the unconscious psyche. 

The unconscious mind is pre-existent to the conscious 
mind. It is a racial possession, common to all, and 
is not acquired during the lifetime. To distinguish this 
primordial portion of the mind Jung calls it the collective 
or impersonal unconscious. Its organ, the brain, is an ancestral 
inheritance, and possesses the pre -formed instincts and 
archetypes of apprehension, which are present as potentialities 
of future thought and feeling. As consciousness emerges out 
of unconsciousness, the mind climbs up its genealogical tree 
as the body has done ; that is, its function becomes more and 
more differentiated. The dawn of reason was a great achieve- 
ment in man, marking his separation from his anthropoid 

1 Kevised and reprinted from the Journal of Experimental Pedagogy, 1916, 
by kind permission. 

16 



THE UNCONSCIOUS 3IIND IN THE CHILD 17 

ancestors. This achievement is repeated in the individual, and 
shows itself in the differentiation between subject and object. 
The earlier ideas are subjective. " Our intellect is born 
out of mythology : it is nothing but a translation of inner 
experience into the language of pictures." l As the child 
develops consciousness, and his experience accumulates, the 

:nal unconscious begins to come into existence. Not 
everything that happens can be assimilated into consciousness 
nor caa everything that enters it be retained in it. These 
things as well as those which are forgotten leave traces in the 
personal unconscious, so do those things that do not possess 
sufficient intensity to rise above the threshold of consciousness, 
such as subliminal sense impressions, and impressions of ideas 
not yet ready for consciousness. The under-expressed elements 
of the psyche are here. Finally, the most notable con- 
tents of the personal unconscious are the repressed materials 
which are incompatible with the conscious personality. These 
elements have a painful emotional tone and are more or less 
deliberately pushed out of consciousness. The repression of 
painful contents begins very early, as we shall see subsequently 
from examples. In this view the personal unconscious is re- 
garded as the acquisition of the individual's life, and is differ- 
entiated from the impersonal unconscious which is a historic 
inheritance. 

In! the earliest weeks of life the young infant is very 
subconscious. Its reactions are almost exclusively instinctive. 
It reaches out for satisfactions in every direction open to it. 
It is dominated mainly by its nutritive function, and its first 
great relinquishment in life occurs at the weaning stage ; 
over this process a certain amount of repression must occur, 
especially in sensitive subjects in whom nervous reactions are 
evinced that are typical of subsequent ones. The earliest 
neurotic tendencies can be observed in relation to feeding, 
and the first evidence of dreams is seen in the infant 
who sucks an imaginary breast in sleep. The training of the 

1 " Psychological Foundations of Belief in Spirits." Jung. Proceedings 
of the Society for Psychical Research. May, 1920. 



18 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

young child consists in a manner in dragging him out of his 
unconsciousness, and tearing his energy loose from his in- 
stinctive processes. Scarcely has he arrived at any personal 
satisfaction, such as being suckled, than he has to give it up, 
and learn to feed himself, an unconscious instinctive process 
being exchanged for one that is conscious and full of difficulties. 
No sooner does he delight to crawl on all fours than he has to 
change this safe posture for the perils of walking. Through- 
out many months a considerable degree of effort is expended 
in gaining control of the excretory functions, and a consider- 
able amount of infantile thinking centres round his body. 
His outward behaviour to the aforementioned functions is a 
sort of criterion of his social advancement, and education is 
necessarily fraught with the renunciation of many a darling 
wish. On a primitive stage thought and feeling are very 
physical or sensational. The actions of the bladder and 
bowels are mysterious and partly pleasurable acts, and of a 
peculiarly personal character. Acts of creation they seem to 
the child. His excretions are interesting matters, which 
stimulate psychic images into existence. The thinking in 
the infantile period has none of the abstract qualities of later 
life, but is by " representation " ; by means of it the child 
passes on to apprehend the next thing in life, by analogy, 
as his primitive forefathers did. Hence it is that in later 
years images or phantasies connected with the bodily functions 
can easily be reanimated by the regressive thinking in dreams, 
or in the hallucinations of those who have lost their mental 
balance. 

Nutritive and excretory functions play a role in the sexual 
phantasies of children when they are thinking round the very 
natural and perplexing question, " Where does the baby come 
from?" That this question is of sufficient importance, when 
accompanied by the repression of an emotional strain, to lead to 
neurotic fear is shown in the analysis of a child reported by 
Dr. Jung. 1 

The subject is a four-year-old girl, the even tenor of whose 
life had been disturbed by the birth of a baby brother. 
1 "Analytical Psychology," p. 134. 



THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND IN THE CHILD 19 

Little Anna was instinctively jealous of the new arrival. 
She imagined herself neglected on account of a real or 
apparent loss of attention which now had to be shared with 
another. She felt herself deceived by her parents on account 
of the theories of birth she had gathered. The earthquake in 
Messina had recently happened, and she heard it talked about 
at table. She asked endless questions about it in a most 
wearisome manner, and developed a precocious desire for 
learning. This eager desire for knowledge was transferred 
from the real object of curiosity (viz. the baby's arrival; to 
a surrogate object, viz. the earthquake. She began to call 
out at night, and by her nocturnal terrors secured for herself 
a degree of tenderness and attention she had not needed 
since the first year of her life. This regression from a 
four-year-old adaptation to an earlier and more infantile one 
is an unconscious mechanism which analytical work makes 
familiar to us. It is caused by a longing to escape from the 
new demands of life by an easier path. Anna had not gone 
far in childhood before she wanted to be an infant again, and 
creep once more into her mother's arms, now so often occupied 
by her supposed rival, about whose advent there was such a 
mystery. The night terrors constituted the neurotic symptom 
which aimed at bringing about the fulfilment of an unconscious 
wish. The introverted libido now seized upon the most con- 
venient object of curiosity and fear, viz. the earthquake. 
This offered a rationalisation both for curiosity and the " dis- 
possessed " love ; day-dreams and brooding supervened, in 
which the introverted libido became occupied with typical 
infantile sexual phantasies. Phantastic ideas of the origin 
of the baby now succeeded one another. Such as birth 
from the breast, mouth, or rectum. After some weeks, Anna, 
with the aid of her parents, found a working solution to her 
question. Her curiosity led to the acquisition of some service- 
able ideas with which she was able to get along, and the 
neurosis disappeared. 1 

1 One of Anna's phantasies ran as follows : " I am going to take an 
orange and swallow it down into my stomach and theml shall get a baby." 
This is a very transparent wish-fulfilling phantasy. The following dream 



20 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

The origin of the unconscious mind is still under 
discussion. Freud attributes it entirely to repression, a 
view with which the foregoing brief account does not coincide. 
Whatever theories the different schools may hold about its 
origin, there is no doubt about its existence, nor about its 
extreme importance on account of its dynamic nature. 'It 
provides the motive power in life. 

To sum up in a rather different form, we may say the 
unconscious mind contains all that mental life of which we 
are unaware at a given moment. All we have ever known or 
thought, or felt, or perceived, or dreamed, leaves some traces 
in the unconscious mind. All that we have discarded as 
being no longer valuable, or that has such slight associations 
with the rest of life that we never fully assimilated it into 
consciousness still exist in the psyche, and under suitable 
conditions a personal memory of them may be revived. 
These elements have at one time been conscious, and can 
again become so, as the result of more or less effort. Other 
elements have at one time been conscious, but have been 
definitely pushed out of consciousness, although the individual 
may be unaware of the fact, because they were too painful to 
be tolerated. Other contents have never yet reached con- 
sciousness at all, although hypothetically they are capable 
of doing so. Some of these would serve no useful purpose by 
becoming conscious, but are survivals of an earlier stage of 
human development, where they once fulfilled some useful 

which occurred in a married woman of forty, mother of four children, deals 
with the same idea though much more thoroughly veiled in accordance with 
the greater age of the dreamer. " I had my head out of the window and was 
looking at a little girl sitting on the doorstep below. She was eating a 
banana. Two rough-looking men came down the street. I felt I must pull 
my head in so that I might not see what happened. Presently the little girl 
came up to my room ; she had been outraged." This dream is founded on an 
infantile theory that the eating of fruit leads to impregnation. The rough 
men stood for the father and husband of the dreamer. Pulling in the head 
represented her resistance against the real facts which seemed like an outrage 
against the infantile personality, viz. the little girl who symbolised her still 
persistent unconscious wish never to grow up. (Peter-Pan motif.) The 
father-husband situation gave the key to her present unhappiness which un- 
mistakably arose from dragging the emotional life of her infantile past into 
her marriage, and expecting to find a father in her husband. 



THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND IN THE CHILD 21 

function. 1 Other contents are prevented from ever becoming 
conscious by the strength of the barrier set up between the 
conscious and the unconscious by our resistances, which may 
be conventional, or cultural, or moral. 

The subliminal material is not unconscious in itself; a 
certain kind of awareness belongs to it, but this awareness is 
outside or beneath the ordinary threshold of consciousness. 
The contents of consciousness vary, so that what is unconscious 
at one moment may become conscious at another. The re- 
pressed contents may rush up, unexpectedly, in disguise, 
perhaps as some emotion which interferes with our clear 
thinking or free activities. Unconscious material breaks 
through into consciousness in various ways, spontaneously or 
against the will ; harmlessly, as in a dream ; harmfully, as in 
a neurosis, or as in an outburst of madness, during which 
outbreak the man lives in his dream, and hence is incorporated 
with or identified with the unconscious. 

An interesting example of two different ways in which the 
unconscious mind works is seen in the Babylonian story of 
Nebuchadnezzar's dream. 2 

The story runs as follows : Nebuchadnezzar obtains a 
warning from the heavenly powers ; he says " a message from 
a watcher and a holy one came down from heaven " ; he " saw 
a dream, had thoughts in his bed, and visions in his head 
troubled him." He was warned, as Daniel interpreted the 
dream to him, that he was as a mighty tree, under which the 
beasts of the field took shelter, were fed and rested, but that 

1 Dr. H. R. Rivers puts forward the view that certain experiences become 
unconscious for reasons of utility, " If the modes of consciousness 
connected with these forms of reactions persisted without modification in 
later life, they could only interfere with the very different and far more com- 
plex reactions of the adult. There is a very definite reason why the conscious 
states connected with infantile reactions should become unconscious. Even 
in an animal whose life history is as uniform as that of man, the different 
phases are sufficiently distinct to provide an ample reason why experience 
should become unconscious. The reason is to be found in the diversity of the 
different phases of the life history, and the incompatibility of the reactions of 
one phase with another." Contribution to a Symposium at a Joint Session of 
the British Psychological Society, Aristotelian Society, and the Mind 
Association, 1918. 

2 Daniel iv. 



22 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

haying overstepped the limits of his power and over-exalted 
himself, that unless he cut off his power, and stripped himself 
of his pride, and scattered his fruits, and left only a remnant 
of himself, his heart would be changed from a man's to a 
beast's. Daniel pointed out how he might evade his doom, 
saying, " Wherefore, King, let my counsel be acceptable 
unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness and thine 
iniquities by showing mercy to the poor : if it may be a 
lengthening of thy tranquillity." 

It was clear that the heart of the king had already gone 
far on the road to become that of a beast, for in spite of his 
appreciation of the meaning and value of the dream, and the 
honour paid to Daniel as " one who was able, and in whom the 
spirit of the holy gods dwelt," we find him a year later dis- 
regarding the interpretation and still ignoring his task of 
stripping himself of his power and his pride and his riches. 
He still neglected to show mercy to the poor ; objectively the 
poor people in his kingdom, subjectively the poor and un- 
developed parts of his own nature. Hence- the doom foretold 
in the message from his own unconscious, fell suddenly upon 
him. He became like the beasts of the field, and in his 
madness he ate grass like the ox, and he was driven forth 
from men in accordance with the custom of his time, and his 
body was wet with the dew of heaven. Only after a long 
time was his reason restored to him, and out of his sufferings 
he could praise the King of Heaven, who " was able to abase 
those that walked in pride." 

This is a beautiful example of the two ways in which the 
unconscious works — first, it called attention to the presence of 
an inner conflict by a dream ; next, the warning neglected, 
it broke through into consciousness and possessed the man ; 
he now in an attack of madness lived in his dream, which 
formerly he had been able to regard objectively. In the first 
instance the man had the unconscious, in the second the 
unconscious had the man ! 

This story illustrates another point of importance. Freud 
showed that the dream contains a manifest and a latent con- 
tent. The manifest content is that part of the dream which 



THE UNCONSCIOUS UIND IN THE CHILD 28 

is remembered on waking, which is generally a remnant of 
something much more extensive. It cannot be interpreted, 
however, until we have obtained information about the latent 
content. It must not be imagined psycho-analysts arrive at 
their interpretations as easily as Daniel appears to have done ; 
there are intervening steps of fundamental importance which 
Daniel's intuition may have allowed him to overleap, or which 
more probably are left out of the Bible narrative. Dream 
analysis is not guesswork — it is a technique ; it follows laws. 
Only on unearthing the latent content, by following the free 
associations of the dreamer and bringing them into intelligible 
juxtaposition, can we arrive at the meaning of the dream. 
The latent content represents the antecedents of the dream, 
and the thoughts connected with it, which unlike the mani- 
fest content are logical and have a significant bearing upon 
the patient's life. Our material is somewhat like the mixed 
pieces of a jig-saw puzzle; we sort, we fit, we make trial, 
we reject piece after piece, until slowly and laboriously the 
parts are arranged, and we have the complete picture. This 
is a work requiring great patience and observation. There is 
no magic about the process, though the effect may appear 
magical, on account of the insight given into the problems of 
human psychology. 

Night dreaming is not the only form of dreaming. Day 
dreaming is of equal, if not greater, importance. This is 
"undirected thinking." The dreamer builds phantastic 
palaces and, directly or indirectly, is the hero of his romance, 
wise, witty, or wicked, according to his wishes. The psychic 
energy (libido) flows along the line of least resistance, the 
direction being determined by the subconscious wishes of the 
moment, in a stream of images connected with one another by 
mere association. Jung says : * " We have two forms of 
thinking, directed thinking and dream or phantasy thinking. 
The first, working for communication with speech elements, 
is troublesome and exhausting ; the latter, on the contrary, 
goes on without trouble, working spontaneously, so to speak, 
with memories. The first creates innovations, adaptations, 
1 " The Psychology of the Unconscious," chap. i. 



24 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

imitates reality and seeks to act upon it. The latter, on the 
contrary, turns away from reality, and sets free subjective 
wishes." 

The alluring part of such mental activity is that it fulfils 
the heart's desire with an ease that makes the dull facts of 
life seem very tedious. Herein lies its peril ; it absorbs the 
libido and divides the attention, and distracts from the tasks 
of the moment. It brings about evasion of real thinking and 
intellectual work which would involve effort and perhaps 
bring about a modification of conduct. Sometimes the day 
dreaming takes a precise form, making a more or less finished 
picture, which we call a phantasy, which rises from the un- 
conscious and is super-imposed upon the conscious thinking. 

It must not be thought that phantasy is always mis- 
chievous. Far from it, it serves very useful purposes. In 
due proportion it is a refreshment to the mind. It is also 
a means of understanding and interpreting the universe. 
In primitive times man always explained what he could not 
understand by making phantasies or myths about phenomena. 
We could have no better example of this than the story of 
Creation in Genesis. The explanation is a projection of man's 
own psychological understanding ; it is his interpretation of 
the facts, which served a valuable purpose at that stage of his 
development. It delivered him from fear, and led him on in 
his spiritual development through law towards grace. " The 
antique spirit created not science but mythology." 1 When, 
centuries later, scientists disclosed the work of creation in 
the rocks and stones, and learned of the age-long evolution 
of the earth and its inhabitants, those who could not give up 
the literal interpretation of these once useful myths in ex- 
change for the new truths, were forced back into regressive 
paths. 

This conflict between old and new ideas is described in 
a book I shall have occasion to quote several times in this 
paper, viz. "Father and Son." 2 This book illustrates other 

1 " Psychology of the Unconscious." 

* " Father and Son : A Study of Two Temperaments." By Edmund Gosse. 
Heinemann. 



THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND IN THE CHILD 25 

things besides the differences of interpretation and under- 
standing that arose in two generations. The elder Gosse, 
who was a naturalist of repute, was confronted with the 
facts of evolution. These clashed with the beliefs con- 
sequent upon his theological standpoint. Unable to effect 
a reconciliation in his mind between the two, he sacrificed 
his scientific intellect. The mind that refuses to enter- 
tain or weigh a new truth because the path is difficult 
and obscure, and even dangerous, tends to become fixed 
and unconsciously infantile. The father was outstripped by 
the son. The tragedy does not lie in the forward push of the 
son, nor in the backward move of the father; it lies in 
the fact that the ties of love and obedience on the part of the 
child, and the weight of parental authority, can prevent the 
liberation of thought and action that should belong to pro- 
gressive life. 

We are recalled to our subject of the unconscious mind by 
a dream of the younger Gosse. It was a recurring dream of 
his childhood, in which, u bound hand and foot, helpless and 
terrified, he was carried on a galloping steed, always making for 
a goal "; he could just see that goal, a ruby coloured point waxing 
and waning, and it bore, or, to be exact, consisted of the letters 
of the word " carmine." This vision caused him inexpressible 
distress, but later on he says : " The fact that the word ' carmine ' 
appeared as the goal of my visionary pursuits is not so 
inexplicable as it may seem. ]My father was at this time 
producing numerous water-colour drawings. . . . These he 
executed in the manner of a miniature with amazing fidelity 
of form, and a brilliancy of colour which remains unfaded after 
fifty years. By far the most costly of his pigments was the 
intense crimson which is manufactured out of the very spirit 
and essence of cochineal. I had lately become an imitator 
of his works of art, but was strictly forbidden to let a hair of 
my paint brush touch the little broken mass of carmine which 
was all he possessed. TVe believed, but I do not know 
whether this could be a fact, that carmine of this superlative 
quality was sold at a guinea a cake. Carmine, therefore, 
became my shibboleth of self-indulgence ; it was a symbol 



'26 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

of all that taste and art and wealth could combine to 
produce." 

He then relates a phantasy. He says, " I imagined that at 
Belskazzar's feast the loftiest epergne of gold, surrounded by 
flowers and jewels, carried the monarch's proudest possession, 
a cake of carmine." 

From the interpretive standpoint, carmine (which has 
a phallic significance here) symbolised the glory and power 
of his father, with whom he identified himself. The ill-health 
and hysteria from which the little lad suffered were evidences 
that a severe mental conflict was going on. His roving in- 
tellect and perfectly natural interests attracted him to the 
world which had been condemned in an unqualified way by 
his father. While he strove to be obedient, his psychic energy 
was largely devoted to his unconscious phantasies, and appeared 
in these terrifying dreams. His mental sufferings and struggle 
for his own individuality in later years showed the severity 
of his unconscious conflict, the longing to live like other boys, 
battled with his desire to please his dominating father with whose 
love and opinions one side of him wished to remain identified. 

From the standpoint of analytical psychology we have 
learnt that neurotic symptoms prove the existence of an 
unconscious conflict. There is a disturbance of the energising 
force in the psyche. The libido that should be applied to 
life (as in the foregoing case of little Anna) introverts and 
lights up the phantasies. This libido or psychic energy is 
conceived by Jung 1 as a hypothetical force which operates 
in the psyche. It is analogous to physical energy in the 
physical world. A definite amount can be applied here or 
there. A violent disturbance in one place implies a diminished 
effect elsewhere. This psychic energy is operative in the 
conscious and in the unconscious part of the mind. At night 
in sleep it is mainly with the unconscious, as the dream 
demonstrates. By day it is, or should be, mostly with con- 
sciousness. A misapplication of this energy produces a split- 
ting or thinning of the stream of attention, and a weakening 

i ii rpk e ijkgQjy f Psycho-Analysis. " Nervous Mental Diseases Monograph 
Series, No. 19. 



THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND IN THE CHILD 27 

of the moral power of the individual. Such a thinning of the 
stream of attention naturally tends to make a child difficult 
to teach, and to interfere with his memory, his prompt 
obedience, and his reliability generally. He is not "on the 
spot," which means that a part of him is on another spot. 

Absent-minded acts are symptomatic of repressed emotion 
and interest. 1 Such lapses always have their origin in the 
subconsciousness. This is also true of much forgetting. It 
is caused by a resistance or emotional opposition to something 
not clearly realised. The emotion is misplaced or transferred 
to some associated object. For example, a child forgets to 
bring his smudgy exercise book to class, and when he has 
incurred his teacher's rebuke he pinches or quarrels with his 
sister by way of getting rid of his own hurt feelings. Disci- 
pline and respect prevent his venting them on his teacher. 
Here the psychic energy is not applied at the point of 
stimulus; it is a back- wash, so to speak, the result of an 
obstacle on the path, but at some distance from the com- 
motion. 

The attacks of lying that are so common in childhood have 
a meaning which can better be understood when one realises 
that the psychic energy thus displayed serves some purpose 
in the child's mind. Such attacks may arise from an over- 
vivid phantasy wherein the dream life is so real that distinc- 
tions are not clearly drawn between fact and idea ; here the 
child is mixed between what is objective and subjective. Or 
they may be a device to aggrandise the self ; this kind often 
occurs with depreciated children. A little girl of eight 
recently returned home from a walk in the Park declaring 
she had met Mr. A., a person in whom her elder sisters were 
interested. The lie had no other purpose than to call her 
sisters' attention to herself, and so relieve her self-depreciation. 
This, though undoubtedly a deceit, has a very different origin 
from lies told for purposes of concealment. Some children 
would rather be naughty and receive punishment than be 
ignored. 

Children often tell lies from the unconscious impulse to 

1 " Psychopathology of Everyday Life." Freud. 



28 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

take revenge on the powers that be. Two little girls were at 
their mother's garden party. The Bishop's wife noticed them 
and asked them their names. To their parents' annoyance 
the elder answered "Sodom," and the younger instantly 
chimed in, "And mine's Gomollah ! " 

One child will exert power over another by means of the 
phantasy he invents and imposes. It appears that Sodom 
used to terrorise "Gomollah" by such a phantasy. She was 
a timid, podgy child, "as fat as a pig, therefore she must 
indeed be a little pig, taken from the sty and adopted as an 
experiment." Whenever she was tiresome in the manner of 
younger sisters, Sodom threatened her with a return to the 
pigsty — it was the proper place of punishment for fat and 
naughty babies. No one at that time knew why Gomollah 
always shrieked whenever she accompanied the grown-up 
members of the family on their Sunday visit to the pigs, nor 
why a sudden wink of Sodom's would always reduce her to 
instant submission. If in later life a patient in an asylum 
calls herself Gomollah, and makes noises like a pig ; or if 
some nervous ailment supervenes in which she gets an attack 
of asthma whenever she sees a pig even in the distance, one 
may fail to find the links. They will certainly not be in the 
conscious mind, and could only operate where the emotional 
content was heaped up and fed from other sources. 

When we seek to investigate the unconscious mind of the 
child our methods must necessarily differ considerably from 
those we employ with adults. This is partly because the 
child is so much nearer the unconscious. If we can catch 
"the growing boy" before the "shades of the prison house" 
deepen too grimly, our task is relatively easy. As yet his 
conscious and unconscious are little differentiated. Bepres- 
sion and the abundance of experience and objective thinking 
have not yet resulted in a wide separation between the two 
spheres of the mind, so that the unconscious content passes 
readily over into consciousness. 

It is useless to ask a child a direct question about things 
of importance to himself. He early learns to evade the 
questions of his elders, and here his attitude is like that of 



THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND IN THE CHILD 29 

primitive man. 31. Willinoes D'Obri, who has lived long in 
the Belgian Congo, recently told me that no native of those 
parts will give a direct and true answer to a stranger. One 
day earlier in his sojourn in the Congo he was sitting with a 
primitive by a camp fire. The native suddenly picked up a 
stone and threw it. 31. D'Obri did the same, remarking, u Oh, 
do yon do that too ? " The native, however, was not to be 
entrapped so easily into giving his confidence, and only long 
afterwards did the questioner learn that the stone was flung at 
the eyes of the dead who haunt camp fires. 

He told of a certain well-known ethnologist of European 
fame, who was making researches in folk-lore. One night 
31. D'Obri heard a gTeat palaver going on in the village, and 
asked his servant the meaning of it. The reply was that the 
chiefs and the young men were making up stories to tell 
"the Old Sheep," which was the nickname of the learned 
traveller, who wore his hair rather long. How many travellers 
have been misled in this way ; they sometimes hear the 
phantasies rather than the histories of the peoples. Such 
material has a psychological value, but not of the kind 
desired. Who has not fallen a victim to similar plots on 
the part of the youngsters ? The ethnologist here fails to 
enter into the mind of the primitive and so gain his complete 
confidence, just as the grown-up person fails to enter into the 
mind of the child. 

We may again refer to "Father and Son" to confirm this 
view. Gosse says : " The discretion of little boys is extra- 
ordinary. ... I had gTown cautious about making confi- 
dences — one never knew how awkwardly they might develop, 
or to what disturbing excess of zeal (on the part of my f'atle: 
they might precipitously lead. I was on my guard against 
my father, who was only too openly yearning that I should 
approach him for help and comfort, for ghostly counsel." 
This motherless little boy had night terrors and terrible 
dreams. His father sought to exorcise by prayer what he 
regarded from his antique standpoint as the devil. He would 
pray at his bedside, the child striving hard to keep awake. 
'•'One unhappy night." he writes, "I gave even worse offence 



30 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

than slumber would have given. My father was praying 
aloud, in the attitude I have described, and I was half sitting, 
half lying in bed, with the clothes sloping from my chin. 
Suddenly a rather large insect, dark and flat, with more legs 
than a self-respecting insect ought to need, appeared at the 
bottom of the counterpane, and slowly advanced. I think it 
was nothing worse than a beetle. It walked successfully past 
my father's sleek black ball of a head, and climbed straight 
up at me, nearer, nearer, till it seemed all a twinkle of horns 
and joints. I bore it in silent fascination till it almost tickled 
my chin, and then I screamed ' Papa ! papa ! ' My father rose 
in great dudgeon, removed the insect (what were insects to 
him !), and then gave me a tremendous lecture. 

" The sense of desperation which this incident produced I 
shall not easily forget. Life seemed really to be very harass- 
ing when to visions within and beetles without there was 
joined the consciousness of having grievously offended God 
by an act of disrespect. It is difficult for me to justify to 
myself the violent jobation which my father gave me in 
consequence of my scream, except by attributing to him 
something of the human weakness of vanity. I cannot help 
thinking he liked to hear himself speak to God in the pre- 
sence of an admiring listener. He prayed with fervour, in 
pure Johnsonian English, and I hope I am not undutiful if 
I add my impression that he was not displeased with the 
sound of his own devotions. My cry for help had needlessly, 
as he thought, broken in upon this holy and seemly perform- 
ance. ' You, the child of a naturalist,' he remarked in awe- 
some tones, 'you to pretend to feel terror at the advance of an 
insect ? ' It could but be a pretext, he declared, for avoiding 
the testimony of faith in prayer. ' If your heart were fixed, if 
it panted after the Lord, it would take more than the move- 
ments of a beetle to make you disturb oral supplication at 
His footstool. Beware ! for God is a jealous God, and He 
consumes them in wrath who make a noise like a dog:.' " 

This example belongs to a phase of life and faith that has 
passed away ; the exact form of this tragedy is not likely to 
be repeated. But dominating adults make it difficult for 



THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND IN THE CHILD 31 

children to be natural. The following notes show how easy 
it is to read children if we have the cine, but how energetically 
they build up defences against being understood. 

Freddy is a boy of eight, undersized, with thick curly 
hair, a pasty complexion and a furtive expression. He is 
extremely intelligent. He was brought to me because he 
was constantly giving trouble at school with thieving and 
lying. He had a curious power over the other children. 

One day he started with his teachers and schoolfellows 
on a railway journey with a halfpenny in his pocket, and 
a copy of Comic Cuts in his hand. He ended his journey 
in possession of elevenpence. He had sold halfpenny peeps 
at Comic Cuts to his companions and so accumulated all their 
wealth. 

On another occasion he possessed one farthing ; another 
little boy brought some toy wax candles to school. Freddy 
bought them from him, but there were no matches with which 
to light them. He promptly suggested that this other boy 
should spend his farthing in lights, which he submissively did. 
Thus the farthing bought all, and yet justice was not infringed ! 
From these stories it will be seen that the boy is clever and 
resourceful ; he would naturally overpower the lesser intelli- 
gences around him. He is the child of a mesalliance. His 
mother, a pretentious woman deserted by his father, works in 
a large retail business house in London. The father is said 
to be a rich American. It is certain that there had been times 
of comparative affluence in the child's life ; these coloured all 
his phantasy. 

One of his recent delinquencies had been a theft of paint 
brushes. I was anxious not to question the child directly 
about this until he gave me some reason for doing so. For 
this purpose, and in order to get at other points in his 
psychology, I made use of the word-association test. 1 The 
words used in this test act to a certain extent like the thing 
they symbolise. I had, in addition to the use of this scientific 
test, an aid from the child's unconscious, in a symptomatic 
act. "Whenever he was disturbed in his mind by emotions 
1 For particulars of this test, cf. Chapter I. 



32 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHAXTASY 

connected with the words called ont to him he would give 
himself away by the utterance of a little clucking sound. 

In arranging the words for the test, I strung together such 
as would have a cumulative effect upon the emotions. The 
result was very striking. When the word " paint-brush " was 
reached he betrayed his agitation by a cluck, which developed 
into a series as the succeeding words were given. The 
reaction time was markedly retarded. The child suddenly 
became suspicious of me, and was determined to outwit me. 
He hit upon a device I have never seen so obviously manifested 
before or since. Following a series of words which struck a guilty 
affect I gave him the word " cannon." Thereupon he made a 
tactical move and associated most of the subsequent words 
with this one. In response to my stimulus word, to which he 
scarcely listened, he shot out rapidly a succession of words 
like Zeppelin, aeroplane, blue, airship, gun, camp, khaki, etc. 
This deliberate attempt to conceal himself, of course, really 
had the effect of showing his anxiety ; moreover, he could not 
reproduce the words correctly. The value of this test has 
been proved in countless cases, otherwise to quote it in an 
isolated instance would be unjustifiable ; but this example 
shows how impossible it is to keep the emotional content of the 
mind in abeyance under the circumstances of the test. One 
can easily see that it would have been useless to ask Freddy 
direct questions as to why he did and said such and such 
things ; he would have been on the defensive at once. 

One day he was asked to sing his favourite song. He chose 
"Jesus loves me." When asked who Jesus was, he said, 
"He is a nice, kind man like my daddy." 

I got him to talk to me about his favourite story, and asked 
him to make a drawing to illustrate it. The favourite story 
proved to be one of Hans Andersen's, called " The Little 
Matchgirl." This is a pathetic tale of privation, in which the 
little girl strikes match after match, seeing beautiful, wish- 
fulfilling visions each time, and finally falls dead in the snow, 
the victim of cold and exposure. 

This is the story Freddy was supposed to illustrate, and 
it was interesting to see the picture he produced. In the 



THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND IN THE CHILD 33 

forefront was the matchgirl, carrying a plentiful supply of 
match boxes ; she had very masculine features and an air of 
grim determination. Behind her stood an elegant gentleman 
in a top hat and long overcoat, with beautiful boots and an 
umbrella ! When I asked him to explain the story, he said 
in his curt little way : " She finds a man she likes ; he goes 
and marries her, and they go to a restaurant to have dinner 
— a beautiful place, all lights and things." He added later 
that this man was a rich American. 

Now, here we have a curious and informing thing. The 
boy had heard the story of " The Little Matchgirl " only that 
very day, and yet a few hours later, when asked to draw it and 
tell the story, he has added to it a fresh creation of his own 
phantasy, quite different from the original story, and as com- 
pletely wish-fulfilling as the visions of the little heroine. 
How comes this about ? Does it give us any insight into his 
psychology ? To the trained analyst this added phantasy, 
which is the product of the child's unconscious mind, is of 
utmost importance. It indicates points of special interest, 
and where a deviation is made from the story, particularly 
precious unconscious wishes are expressed. 

In this recital Freddy has shown that he identifies himself 
with the matchgirl. In the story she is taken to heaven. 
This is not the kind of happiness Freddy wants. But he, too, 
desires to be delivered from privations and strike bright lights 
and see beautiful visions. He lives with his mother, who 
works for her bread; he is her sole companion in their one 
room. His memories of greater comfort and evanescent 
splendour are connected with a glorious, half-mythical father, 
and all the tales of wonder his mother tells him are of a rich 
American who for a brief spell delivered them from dullness 
and hardship. His mother's phantasies and experiences 
become his own by adoption, and through the medium of 
the little matchgirl he identifies himself with his mother, 
and is thus rescued by the man of the picture. 

Now, it is a fact verified by thousands of dream analyses, 
that the dreamer appears in various guises in the dream. He 
can play both the male and female role. Our little boy also is 

3 



34 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

here present as the dashing and powerful father, who can 
transport him to happiness, all by the simple magic of 
marriage. 

Here is a modernised fairy prince who becomes the husband 
and deliverer of the mother-matchgirl — a fond wish of his 
childish heart. His phantasy represents his compelling attach, 
ment to the mother and shows him in the role of the powerful 
father, a role which turns up again and again in his dominating 
attitude to his school companions. His financial operations, 
we must admit, have an American flavour also, in which he 
makes his corners in Comic Cuts and candles. This story 
illustrates the undue spiritual and mental bondage of the child 
which acts ambivalently in the direction of either parent. 
The phantasy which represents this bondage acts emotionally 
like a predisposition or prejudice. Freddy's conduct shows 
trends which belong to this unconscious attitude. 

The circumstances of the boy's life were such as threw him 
into too exclusive a relationship with the mother. Already in 
his unconscious he was so bound to her as to weaken the 
ordinary influences of school and education. • A stronger power 
than his teachers' held him, and one which they were not in a 
position to combat. With more happily-placed children, life 
itself tends to break up these too close bonds, but here all the 
external circumstances reinforce the influences that are going 
on in the unconscious. 

This child was naturally imaginative, and the circumstances 
of his life as well as his psychological bias led him to heap 
phantasy upon his mother, thus increasing her power over 
him. 

The way in which such an unconscious bondage does some- 
times influence a life recently came under my notice in the 
case of a young man, who was sensitive, imaginative, and 
clever, and very devoted to his home. He was sent to a 
preparatory school, where he contracted all sorts of illnesses, 
infectious and otherwise, and was constantly being sent home 
to be nursed, or having a term off. Later he went to a public 
school, and six weeks turned him into an invalid, so that he 
was pronounced unfit for school life. He was next taught by 



THE UXCOXSCIOUS 3HXD IX THE CHILD 35 

tutors at home, and later went to the university, where after a 
few weeks he broke down, and had to be sent home as a u case 
of nerves." He was able to take his degree subsequently, and 
does his mental work passably well while living at home, but 
he is not able to take up any career that takes him away from 
home. 

The key to a child's inability to work well, or to fulfil the 
ordinary requirements of a healthy schoolboy, is often to be 
found in his home life ; and when this is the case, it is in that 
direction that the fundamental changes should be made. 

My next case is that of a little girl of thirteen. She is 
brought to me on account of nervousness. She has a morbid 
fear of wasps, she cannot leave her parents' care, and is a great 
tax upon them. This fear of wasps keeps her much at home in 
the summer, interferes with the opening of windows, and with 
the family holiday, etc. She is somewhat precocious in her 
physical development, unusually mature-looking for her age. 
She is distressed at all the signs which assure her she i3 grow- 
ing up, and though she is perfectly well, she insists periodi- 
cally that her mother should wash her and treat her as if she 
were a young child again. 

We had many talks, and sometimes we analysed dieams. 
She often dreamed of Zeppelins. She was very frightened 
of them ; particularly so, because her father was a special 
constable, and when they came he had to leave home. 
One day, we discussed her favourite story, which was Han3 
Andersen's " Little AEermaid." In this tale the little mer- 
maid makes a great sacrifice in order to become a mortal and 
experience human love; however, she finally renounces her 
human lover in order to follow the higher spiritual develop- 
ments of her nature. The choice of this as the favourite 
story is not without its significance for Phyllis, as you will see. 

Another day she brought her doll to me. This is a huge 
doll, the size of a child of a year old. The interesting point 
was that Phyllis had only recently taken to playing with 
dolls. She used to be a great bookworm, but lately had 
developed a perfect passion for this doll spending hours 
making its clothes and talkins 1 to it. In her talks she would 



36 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

assume the role of mother, nurse, father, teacher, etc., and 
answered for the doll in a special voice like a ventriloquist. 
Her talks were clever and amusing. The mother rather 
encouraged this pastime as taking Phyllis away from her books, 
and leading her to the useful arts of sewing and laundering. 

This playing with a doll was incompatible with her intel- 
lectual development, for not only was she clever, but she was a 
beautifully-grown girl of thirteen, tall and rosy, although she 
had an abrupt and suspicious manner, and an aggressive way of 
speaking. With her relatives she was positive and dictatorial, 
and rough in her demonstrations of affection. She was, how- 
ever, a delight to her teachers on account of her mental ability, 
though somewhat of a disappointment because of the in- 
equality of her work. Her intellectual was far in advance of 
her emotional development, hence she cut a better figure at 
school than at home. 

Amongst material that came up for analysis was a little 
poem she had written some months earlier. The choice of 
the subject of the poem is again of great significance, show- 
ing the problem with which the phantasy from her unconscious 
is engaged. 

The incidents she selected for her story were as follows. 
Apollo had offended Cupid, who in revenge struck him with a 
golden arrow, while he planted a leaden one in Daphne's 
breast. This made the god love without return. He pursued 
Daphne, who fled from him until her strength seemed about to 
fail. She called loudly for her father's help, who came to her 
rescue and turned her into a laurel tree before which the 
rejected god could only deplore his loss. 

The unconscious problem in this child's mind is one that is 
typical for the age of puberty. It is the coming of love. She 
does not want to grow up. (Peter Pan motif.) The adapta- 
tions demanded by the love life begin to be apprehended 
ahead by the unconscious, involving as they do the acceptance 
of sexuality, not only its outer manifestations but its inner 
impulses. 

Children who are neurotic, that is extra sensitive, often 
develop nervous symptoms at puberty just because this is a 



THE UNCONSCIOUS 3IIND IN THE CHILD 37 

stage when a great many new adjustments are required. The 
childish dependence must be given up, if the human being 
would fit himself or herself for maturity. Here the child is at 
a point where the emotional life must be developed, since in 
this case it is behind the intellectual life. This demand for 
new adjustments presents itself as an obstacle ; this is the 
spark which causes the conflagration already prepared for in the 
subconscious. Afraid of the task, which is only unconsciously 
realised, she turns back to a childish attitude. Instead of 
going on and learning to develop and express differently her 
love for her mother, her teachers, and her friends, and to take 
up new human relationships, she takes a leap backwards and, 
by means of her phobia, once moreestablish.es herself as a little 
sheltered child, whose appropriate home is in the arms of her 
mother. What Phyllis would tell you is that she wants above 
all things to grow up and marry and have children of her own 
and keep a school, and so on. Her unconscious has other 
wishes, however : it wants to remain irresponsible and be always 
in the parents' charge. The sensitiveness of the subject is so 
great, and the unconscious conflict is so severe that a phobia, 
which is a symbol formation, breaks through into conscious- 
ness. The onset of menstruation is the determining factor of 
the neurosis. The symbol is a fear of wasps : " they are such 
wicked things when they put out their stings." The effects of 
the fear are sufficiently severe to cause grave anxiety to the 
parents, who are forced in this way to pay a special amount of 
attention to the child. Here we have to recognise the same 
springs of conduct that animated little Anna's night terrors. 

To verify our conclusions we have only to look a little deeper 
into the meaning of the dreams and phantasies. The favourite 
story depicts in the guise of " The Little 3Iermaid " a heroine 
who loves an impossible prince, and is therefore unable to 
marry, and escapes the practical and difficult experience of 
human love by following her spiritual aims. 

The poem about Apollo and Daphne tells of a nymph who, 
when pursued by the great god Apollo as a lover, flies him, and 
seeking the protection of the father continues her existence in 
the vegetative form, thus becoming fixed in a certain staee of 



38 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

her development. Pkyllis's choice of a doll as a plaything, at 
a time long separated from her real interest in such toys, is 
brought about by the heaping up of her psychic energy, which, 
unable to go forward to fill the new channels of duty and self- 
dependence, flows back into old paths, and reanimates interests 
which now are better forgone. 

The value of psychological analysis shows itself in a case like 
this. It is not possible for such an intelligent child to under- 
stand the situation without wishing to alter it. No amount of 
argument solves a case like this, but the material of the uncon- 
scious is self-convincing when it is analytically interpreted. 

It must be noted that the analytical work is on the unconscious 
mind. Many misunderstandings of the method arise here, 
because this is not sufficiently understood. Sympathetic in- 
sight into and handling of a child's troubles is net analvtical 
psychology, though it often works so well and efficiently that 
no further treatment is needed. Psycho-analysis comes in 
just when this fails, because it is a technique for reaching 
what is unconscious or subconscious in the mind, and that by 
a special and difficult method which only a fully-trained 
analyst can pursue. I have seen it stated that " the chief 
requisites for psycho-analysis are a thorough knowledge of 
psychology, great patience, and a sympathetic attitude." 
These are indeed important, but one indispensable requisite is 
omitted, that is, that the analyst must have a thorough know- 
ledge of his own unconscious mind ; hence no one is competent 
to undertake the psychological analysis of a child who has not 
first submitted himself to a searching analysis. Unless he 
knows and allows for his own complexes and tendencies he will 
inevitably project some of his own unredeemed infantile views 
on to the child. Moreover, he must delve into the infantile 
processes in his own unconscious to be able to interpret what 
he rinds in the precious but delicate little mind under review. 
It is as if an oculist who was unaware of the desrree of short 
sight that belonged to his own vision should prescribe glasses 
for a patient. In such a case he would be in danger of adding 
his own error of vision to that of his patient. 

As yet, psycho-analysis has been but seldom applied directly 



THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND IX THE CHILD 39 

to children, that is, in the sense in which I speak, as a 
technique for the understanding of the unconscious. 

There are reasons for this. It results in a kind of re- 
education. Parents and teachers are not very willing to 
believe that the little child to whom they have given so much 
love and care needs re-education so early, and they often think, 
and naturally, that the doctor is the last person to undertake 
this. Parents and teachers should perhaps be the best psycho- 
analysts, but the one essential condition is lacking, they have 
not themselves been analysed, Hence they still carry, unknown 
to themselves, marked effects of their own infantile mind, and 
this operates all unconsciously to prevent a fair and detached 
attitude. The book, "Father and Son," is full of instances 
showing how a deeply-loving but strangely deluded parent 
and a docile and devoted son may react disastrously upon one 
another, not only on account of clash of temperaments, bu 
also on account of what is really unknown in the situation. 

There are two extreme types of parents and teachers — t_i: =e 
who avoid the obvious errors of their own upbringing by falling 
into the opposite ones ; and those who hold by everything that 
has gone to make them, under the impression of the excellence 
of the results achieved. An extreme attitude is to be avoided. 
The solution of the imm ediate problem is not in the mind of the 
parent or teacher ; it is to be found in the mind of the child- 
A fundamental axiom in analytical psychology is : FdBou the 
mind of the child ; Jet it direct the paih of th : vour. 

The child's dreams and phantasies give a clue to his behaviour, 
and afford a hint as to the right line of his future endeavour- 
Often they hit the mark in a plain and direct manner, and 
clear up puzzles which are otherwise insoluble. I have an idea 
of the way in which what is valuable in psycho-analysis will 
reach the child, and that is through the teacher. I entertain 
a phantasy of my own, that in no very distant future parents 
and teachers will themselves seek to be analysed, not because 
they are ill or neurotic, but because they desire to take into 
account, in a practical and understanding way, the subconscious 
mind of their children and pupils which hitherto has had far 
too little attention. 



Ill 

FEAB IN THE CHILD AXD THE AUTHORITY 
CO]^PLEX ■ 

There are two demons that haunt the life of the typical 
child. They are not very obvious at first sight, because they 
belong to the unconscious processes of the mind, they depend 
in a very large degree upon the child's phantasies. They are 
Fear, and a Sense of Inferiority. 

I speak of the typical child in a typical environment. 
We may leave for the moment all consideration of the 
abnormal child, or child with an abnormal environment, 
because my aim is to prove if possible that the most ordinary 
individual is liable to be hag-ridden, and almost certain to be 
hampered in development by the above-mentioned demons. 

Fear itself has two functions. It either warns and teaches 
foresight, or else it paralyses and produces panic. Normal 
fear is up to a point a serviceable teacher, for the child is in 
the presence of a Universe to whose laws he must learn to 
submit. If he does not fear the fire, it will burn him ; let him 
therefore experience the fire, within limits, so that he may 
adapt himself to its prohibitions. 

Fear of disaster promotes wise caution. "We do not launch 
our new inventions regardless of risk, but only when we 
believe all the dangerous possibilities have been taken into 
consideration. In spite of our care, some of the gravest 
dangers are those which are not, and possibly cannot, be fore- 
seen, for new conditions bring into experience natural laws 
which have not as yet been reckoned with. 

It is our aim in the training of children to save them from 
needless or useless fear. There are things we cannot control, 

1 Lecture delivered at the Summer School of Civics and Eugenics, Cam- 
bridge, 1919. 

40 



FEAE IN THE CHILD 41 

such as thunderstorms, absence of loved ones, birth and death, 
accident, illnesses, growth, development, and old age. With 
our best endeavours to soften the asperity of life for children, 
there still remain endless sources of fear, since humanity is 
heir to all those of a universal and collective character. 

For the child each unknown event as it comes along is a 
source either of curiosity or suspicion, of attraction or repulsion. 
The inner or psychical life of which we take so little direct 
heed, has at least as great a validity as that of the material 
world. We cannot even begin to study the question of fear 
without having to convince ourselves of the extreme importance 
of the inner life, and we must look to the mind of the child to 
find the source of the most alarming of his distresses. The 
reaction of fear is often quite out of proportion to the object 
of fear. The emotional tone belongs to the phantasy that 
merges with the object, and is a contribution from the child's 
unconscious mind. It belongs to the myth he weaves round 
his experience. The exercise of phantasy has a beneficial as 
well as a harmful side. We must not lose sight of this while 
we lay stress on the other side, namely, the relation between 
fear and phantasy. By means of phantasy bridges are built 
from the known to the unknown. It is the function which 
operates normally between the conscious and unconscious sides 
of the mind. In the effort to understand life, subconscious 
images which have lain dormant in the primordial mind-stuff 
spring into existence. The child projects these images and 
their combinations on to the objects of his environment. 
Before he is aware he has become a devoted slave to his own 
imaginings, nor does he foresee that some of these which have 
a merely transitory meaning, will become crystallised into 
morbid forms which may haunt his path for years, it may even 
be throughout life. 

In this connection autobiographical records are of great 
value, and I should like to quote those of Edmund Gosse. 1 
His childhood was extraordinarily repressed on its emotional 
side, and much over-stimulated on its mental side. Writing 
of his sixth year he says : " Being so restricted, and yet 
1 " Father and Son." Edmund Gosse. Heinemann. 



42 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

so active, ray mind took refuge in an infantile species 
of natural magic. This contended with the definite ideas 
of religion which my parents were continuing, with too 
mechanical a persistency, to force into my nature, and it ran 
parallel with them. I formed strange superstitions, which I 
can only render intelligible by naming some concrete examples. 
I persuaded myself that if I could only discover the proper 
words to say, or the proper passes to make, I could induce 
the gorgeous birds and butterflies in my father's illustrated 
manuals to come to life, and fly out of the book, leaving holes 
behind them. . . . During morning prayers, which were 
extremely lengthy and fatiguing, I fancied that one of my 
two selves could flit up, and sit clinging to the cornice, and 
look down on my other self and the rest of us, if I could only 
find the key. I laboured for hours in search of these formulas, 
thinking to compass my ends by means absolutely irrational. 
For example, I was convinced if I could only count consecutive 
numbers long enough, without losing one, I should suddenly, 
on reaching some far-distant figure, find myself in possession 
of the great secret. I feel quite sure that nothing external 
suggested these ideas of magic, and I think it probable that they 
approached the ideas of savages at a very early stage of develop- 
ment} 

"All this ferment was completely unobserved by my parents. 
But when I formed the belief that it was necessary, for the 
success of my practical magic, that I should hurt myself, and 
when, as a matter of fact, I began in extreme secrecy, to run 
pins into my flesh and bang my joints with books, no one will 
be surprised to hear that my mother's attention was drawn to 
the fact that I was looking ■ delicate.' ... As I became 
very pale and nervous and slept badly at nights, with visions 
and loud screams in my sleep, I was taken to a physician 
who stripped me and tapped me all over (this gave me some 
valuable hints for my magical practices), but could find 
nothing the matter. ... It culminated in a sort of fit of 
hysterics when I lost all self-control, and sobbed with tears, 
and banged my head on the table. While this was proceeding, 
1 The italics are mine. 



FEAK IN THE CHILD 43 

1 was conscious of that dual individuality of which I 
have already spoken, since while one part of me gave way, 
and could not resist, the other part in some extraordinary 
sense seemed standing aloof, much impressed. I was alone with 
my father when this crisis suddenly occurred, and I was 
interested to see that he was greatly alarmed." 

The first objects round which imagination centres are the 
parents. Speaking generally, the nearest object of love is 
the mother, and the first of awe is the father. No matter 
how loving the father may be in actual life, for the infant he 
becomes the first disciplinary force that causes a separation 
between him and his mother. What is the daily experience ? 
The mother's pre-occupation with the child, ordinarily takes a 
second place in the presence of the father; hence the child 
begins to place the parents in his compelling phantasy in two 
categories, by the one there is represented Love, by the other 
Law. Typically, "mother" stands for tenderness and sub- 
mission, and " father " for authority and aggression. 

These ideas of the parents are summed up under the 
psycho-analytic concept of the father and mother imago. The 
imago is a complex of associated thoughts and feelings about 
a real or imaginary relationship having a special emotional 
tone. This fact is of fundamental importance in a child's 
psychology. The necessity felt by primitive people and 
children to make images or imaginations, is, as Gosse suggests, 
an inner one. In this way a sum of emotion is ejected on to an 
external object. The Primitive does this when he takes stones 
and trees as fetishes, and credits them with magic powers. 
In the Mosaic law we have the prohibition against making 
" images or likenesses of anything that is in the heaven 
above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the 
earth." While this law, as well as St. John's warning to the 
Early Christians to " keep themselves from idols," was doubt- 
less partly designed to keep them from being drawn into the 
idolatrous religions and social customs surrounding them, 
it has a deeper origin and a more universal application on 
account of the innate dispositions of the human mind to pro- 
ject its own images, and then to fear them. 



44 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

The idea of the father-imago is universally prevalent. 
Many of the notions connected with it are absent from con- 
sciousness, but they lie waiting in the unconscious, and belong 
to the historic inheritance. The father is the head of the 
family, the leader of the tribe (the chief), the first man in the 
country (the King), the highest moral ideal, and the last 
court of appeal (the God). The most worshipped idol to-day 
is, as ever, the Authority Idol, which as in old times we take 
for God Himself. 

The threat to a small child, " I shall tell your father," or 
the policeman, or the sweep, or the bogey man, gains its 
significance from these unconscious ideas. Honour and hatred 
given to the father find their motives in the image that is 
involuntarily formed. This image is a resultant of emotions 
from various mental systems set in vibration. While it has a 
certain foundation in experience, it is in the main far from 
being the correct likeness of a particular parent, either of an 
approving and beneficent one, or a disapproving and punish- 
ing one. 

Thus, it appears, it is not necessarily the actual father, but 
the added phantasies that make the imago. If we look into 
ethnological records we find the primitive imagination creates 
for itself gods and demons which are projections of these 
terrors, they are so anti-human as only to be approached with 
placation. Deep in the subconscious of the most highly 
civilised person these phantasies exist and actuate conduct. 

The childish experiences of Edmund Gosse, which in- 
cidentally show us hysteria in the making, find a parallel 
in some phantasies and symptoms of neurosis which occurred 
in a small patient of mine. 

A little boy of seven was brought to me because he had 
taken to thieving, he also suffered from night terrors and 
nervous tics. He had attacks of almost frenzied behaviour. 
For some months past at intervals he had taken money from 
his mother's purse, which he subsequently spent on presents 
of fruit and flowers to take to his teachers. 

When I questioned him he told me he was afraid to go to 
sleep because he thought something might be under his bed. 



FBAB IN THE CHILD 45 

One of his secret troubles was that his younger sister was 
in his class, and as she was much cleverer than he, he was 
always being surpassed by her. This disappointed his mother, 
who hoped for learning in her only son, to keep up the high 
intellectual traditions of a distinguished family. The little 
boy felt depreciated, and to reinstate himself in his own 
opinion and increase his importance, he gave his teachers 
fine presents bought with stolen money, and in this primitive 
way attempted to enhance his personality. A dream pictures 
the dragon as " stealing my sister." She, it appeared, was his 
nearest and dearest friend, though, he was unconsciously 
jealous of her and wanted her out of the way (out of his 
class). If he was to beat her in class and take his proper 
place, it would mean hard work and effort, and perhaps he 
could not do it after all. 

In such a case the child does not know why he steals. He 
is completely puzzled when you say to him : " As you stole 
the money, why did you not eat the grapes you bought with 
it ? Why did you give them to Hiss X. ? :; In a vague way 
he feels he has done far less wrong than if he ate them him- 
self, and yet he is confronted with the fact of the theft. 
Without knowing it he has been following the irrational way 
of the unconscious mind. He was under a compulsion to 
overcome his feelings of inferiority. Thieving in this case 
was just as much a symptom of neurosis as were the night 
terrors, and the tics. The thefts were genuine, but must not 
be regarded as showing a particularly dishonest character. 
Xor is the case one of kleptomania, where the stealing is an 
unconscious act. In this instance the child is morally 
responsible, that is, he steals consciously, but is unconscious 
of the motives. His thieving is on a par with any other sort 
of naughtiness, but less guilty in proportion to the neurotic 
element. Thieving of this kind is fairly common in children 
and young adults, and is often punished with disproportionate 
severity. This nervous symptom is the result of myth 
making ; it is an over-compensation for self-deprecation. What 
the child wants is to be noticed and loved. He does some- 
thing to attract attention to himself. His mother's purse is 



46 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

lying about. It prompts hirn to action and links the idea with 
the emotions seething in the unconscious. He takes the 
money, and buys the presents, the giving of them seems to 
work delightfully at first, and this goes on until the whole 
thing comes to the knowledge of the Powers that Be. 

It was evident to my mind that this child was highly 
imaginative, and very timid, so I questioned him about his 
dreams, and asked him to draw something for me; where- 
upon he drew a dragon. He did not seem to be perfectly sure 
such creatures did not exist. 

On his second visit, he told me the following dream : 
"Annie and I were playing in the nursery. There was an 
awful rumbling, and the floor split open. A big dragon came 
out and stole my sister, and swallowed her up. I was very 
frightened and ran to my father, who came and killed the 
dragon, and my sister got out." 

I talked to him about the story his own mind had produced. 
" Did I really make the dream ? " he said, and began to be 
greatly interested. Then he told me what came into his mind 
about dragons, and what he felt about losing his sister, and 
her rescue by her father. Any points that arose had due 
attention, the child being left to lead the way so far as 
possible. The dream, regarded as a parable, made a profound 
impression on him. 

The symbols worked out much in this way. Tlie sister is 
the symbol for the child's treasure, his other self, his soul one 
may say. The dragon stands for an evil principle, and is 
clearly linked up with the theft, for " it stole my sister " said 
the dreani. It represents the evil or devil principle, with its 
method of sloth and grab. 

Tlie father represents the good, or the God-principle, or 
the principle of knowledge ("father knows such a lot "). 

The dream exactly shows the conflict of the child. It 
occurred at a time when he was in great trouble, and a large 
part of his psychic energy was introverted. He had done 
wrong;, and did not know how to leave off doing it; all his 
schemes seemed to carry him deeper and deeper into disgrace. 
The interpretation of the dream is very obvious when all the 



FEAK IN THE CHILD 47 

facts are known and understood. But the meaning of his 
troubles is not clear to the child. It is most important to get 
his free associations, which are just those one might expect 
in this particular case. The dream, when interpreted, points 
out his mistake. He needs to understand that he has been 
seeking a self-indulgent, self-destructive way of gaining love 
and notice. What he must do is to work to overcome his 
sloth and laziness, as the father worked, by fighting and killing 
the dragon. By following the higher law in himself, he must 
do battle to get what he now wants to have without de- 
serving it. 

The dreams of children have a very mythological character. 
In them the racial memory is preponderant ; they have as yet 
acquired little individual memory. Wordsworth tells us 
that — 

" Our birth is but a sjeep and a forgetting ; 
The soul that riseth with us, our life's star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
And cometh from afar : 
Not in entire forgetfulness, 
And not in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
From God, Who is our home." 

The clouds of glory are associated with the cosmic thunders 
too, for the more the child is under the influence of the un- 
conscious, the more he suffers from fear, and the more, in a 
specific case, is he afraid of going to sleep, lest some monster 
should catch him. The way to free him from these terrors is 
to build up his conscious knowledge, so that he is able to 
correct imagination with reality. 

The child's fear centres round the dragon, which is an 
archetype of common occurrence in the mind. The dream 
is based on the " incest motive," and is capable of a completely 
Freudian interpretation dealing with a concrete wish for incest. 
In the view of the Swiss school, this is to be interpreted psycho- 
logically as adaptation to the mother, a regressive longing for 
the soft delights of a former day. Our little dreamer is only 
seven, but his problem is one that begins even earlier than 
this, and besets man again and again in the course of 



48 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

life. 1 The tendencies to regress and progress are portrayed in 
the dream in the conscious ego of the dream, viz. the boy, and 
the little sister. The little sister represents that amount of 
the libido that strives backwards to the unconscious. The 
boy runs to the father, representing that portion of libido 
that strives to consciousness. The mother becomes destructive 
and terrible - because she attracts the unconscious libido ; the 
father becomes the symbol of the right way. because he leads 
to reality. The need for the dreamer is to be re-born 3 from 
the mother, which is equivalent to saying he must find energy 
and vitality for a new life out of that libido which his trouble 
had introverted. A new attitude must be released. 

Both the children quoted suffered from a sense of inferiority . 
This feeling is an enormous factor in the psychical life. It 
arises quite as much from within as from without. It is based 
on a comparison between the immense size and power of the 
parents and the smallness and ineffectiveness of the child. 

Thoughtful adults are much more often guilty of re- 
inforcing this sense of inferiority than of implanting fear. 
The child naturally feels weak and small. He has little 
power over his surroundings. There are only three ways in 

1 The Dragon is not killed once for all and done with : — 

" Oft has he been riven; slain 
Is no force in YVestermain. 

Wait, and we shall forge hi™ curbs, 

Put his fangs to uses, Tame, 
Teach him, quick as cunning herbs, 

How to cure him, sick and lame. 
Much restricted, much enringed, 
Much he frets, the hooked and winged 
Never known to spare. 

Self, his name declare. " 

1 Dr. G. Elliot Smith, in his fascinating book, " The Evolution of the 
Dragon," tells us it " was primarily a personification of the life-giving and the 
life-destroying powers of water," which later became the Great Mother. The 
symbol has two maternal aspects, on the one side it is a beneficent and fructi- 
fying power, on the other it is a destroying demon, who does not hesitate to 
devour her own children. 

* The " Psychology of the Unconscious " is taken up with the elaboration 
of this universal problem. 



FEAE IX THE CHILD 49 

which he can influence them, and these are only relative. 
He can make himself a great nuisance, or, on the other hand, 
so endearing, that he temporarily manages his milieu. Or he 
can make himself more or less almighty within himself by 
the phantasies he creates. By this means he can escape from 
a world of reality into a world of fiction. The earlier ways, as 
we know, do not always succeed ; nor does the way of imagi- 
nation. When once the door to the unconscious creative 
realm is open, it admits terrors as well as delights, so that if 
the imaginative child knows joy, he also knows fear. If he 
creates a magic world on the one hand, he is tortured by his 
imagination on the other. He has yet to learn that things 
of the unconscious world are distinct from the objects of his 
thought or feeling. 

This is a fact that we are late in learning. Some of us 
never achieve more than a dim recognition that it is through 
our own coloured spectacles that we see the world. One can 
get an acquaintance with the mind of the child as much by 
contact with the unchanged childish mind in man or woman 
as by contact with actual children. We carry with us certain 
unconscious tendencies or complexes, which have remained in 
an elementary state of development, and which have become 
isolated in a special compartment where they carry on an 
automatic life of their own. 

There is a similar phenomenon in the physical world. 
Little remnants of embryonic tissue, instead of developing, 
become caught and isolated in the growing tissues, and re- 
maining idle, as it were, may do no harm. Under certain 
conditions, however, they break unexpectedly into active life, 
and take on a growth that, being inappropriate and out of date, 
has a malignant effect. 

I met a striking case of such arrested thinking in a 
neurotic teacher of forty-three. She thought, up to the day 
she spoke to me, that the child was born from the navel. 
This is an interesting remnant of childish phantasy which has 
many counterparts in myth and religion. The navel is a 
birthplace of note. Brahma is frequently represented as seated 
on a lotus which has its long root in the navel of the mother, 

•i 



50 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

or in the equiTalent ilus or slime which is the feminine 
originating cause of all the elements. To the Brahman this 
is a symbol, but by the teacher of forty-three this phantasy 
had been taken concretely, and the effect of such belief can 
only tend to isolate the individual from a world so inade- 
quately apprehended. The retention of such a phantasy 
always goes with an emotionally childish psychology. Phan- 
tasies of this kind should not persist into mature life. They 
serve very admirably as infantile theories, but when they 
become stabilised something is lacking in consciousness that 
ought to be there. There has been a turning away from facts 
which should be interesting to the normal individual, some- 
times under the prudish idea that ignorance is innocence, 
sometimes from a dislike of the responsibility entailed by 
knowledge. 

A few years ago a nervous young woman of twenty came 
to me. She was full of childish romance. Life presented her 
with many difficulties because she was either excitable or 
dreamy, and generally unpractical by nature. She was 
training to be a secretary. She had about a year previously 
very nearly become the victim of a serious mental break- 
down. In her extremity she had found a way to help 
herself. When she was rebuked, as she often was, she would 
weave a phantasy that she was a martyr tied to a stake. 
Under the sway of this idea she could be brave, and bear 
everything that came in her way, and could tide herself over 
her feelings of levity or deep discouragement. Or when she 
had a difficult task she imagined herself a knight rescuing 
a maiden or going on a crusade. Phantasy of this kind 
served her for a short time only. It had pulled her through 
a nervous phase at a time when no other help was forthcoming, 
and nothing more robust would have served her so well. 
By the time she came under my care, however, this saving 
mental construction was already threatening to sap her sense 
of reality, and plunge her again into the abyss of mental 
confusion she had barely escaped. It is just in this way 
that the child uses phantasy to explain the universe or to 
surmount it. What is helpful and appropriate at one stage of 



FEAK IN THE CHILD 51 

development, or in states of weakness, is pathological and a 
serious menace at other times. 

If the foregoing considerations have brought us to the 
point of understanding the compelling power of phantasy, we 
are in a better position to estimate the energic value of the 
authority complex. 

By the term " eomplex " one means the systems or ramifi- 
cations of ideas associated with a given object of interest. 
Favourite examples are religious or political complexes. 
Complexes have a definite emotional tone, and with some 
people we cannot get near the complex because the con- 
nections run so far and wide. When a person is perpetually 
having his corns trodden on, it is because his complexes 
extend to his very toes ! 

The authority complex is based upon the unconscious 
ideas connected with the father, or rather with the dominant 
parent, for it may happen that the mother is the greater 
disciplinary force, and the father the more loving and in- 
dulgent one. 

At school the master or mistress replaces the authority in 
the home, and thus becomes a surrogate for the parents. The 
child tends to react to the new authority in the old manner. 
Where the change from home to school life is easily made, 
the complex does not turn up in any disturbing way, either 
consciously or unconsciously. But more enterprising children, 
or those who are described as difficult, sooner or later come 
in conflict with the powers that be. If a child be unusually 
difficult to manage even though in expert hands, we must 
expect to find something in hi3 home life, or in his phantasy, 
that explains what is exceptional in his conduct. 

The teacher becomes the substitute for the parent, but with 
this great difference. At home as a rule the emotional life is 
more prominent. At school the intellectual life is more in 
evidence. So that it sometimes happens that children who 
were always in trouble in the nursery behave admirably in the 
schoolroom. They are cleverer with their heads than with 
their hearts. The opposite is the case with those whose strong 
point is their power of affection or their practical abilities. 



52 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

This accounts for some surprising differences between parents 
and teachers in the estimation of a child's character. 

Some cases of stubbornness and hostility to the teacher are 
mainly explained by unconscious complexes. I came across 
an instance of a girl of seventeen who had become a torment 
in class, particularly with one teacher. The result was 
that whenever she went into a class there was an expec- 
tation of mischief. Not only did the scholars show some 
excitement in her presence, and laugh and giggle, but the 
teachers would instinctively look first in her direction when- 
ever anything went wrong. Consequently, though not neces- 
sarily worse than others, she was always caught or suspected. 
Thus she became a scapegoat, that is, she served for the 
projection of naughtiness and guilt. There was a partial 
compulsion to play the role expected of her, as well as some 
taste for doing so. 

She had been devoted to her aunt, who had brought her 
up from infancy. Being the only girl, for her cousins were 
all boys, she had been greatly indulged. The aunt had died a 
few months before, after a short illness. In her half-delirious 
state she had said many things to her niece which had served 
to frighten the girl badly, and the fatal event emphasised the 
fears aroused. On her deathbed the aunt had an access of 
religious feeling, and a sense of responsibility towards the 
adolescent girl whom she foresaw she was leaving. She made 
appeals to her and spoke warningly of the future. It is prob- 
able she was not in a state to weigh her words, but the effect 
on the girl's mind was one of worry and confusion. 

During her aunt's life the niece had always identified 
their interests. She had cared specially for drawing and 
literature (for the aunt was an artist and writer) and excelled 
in them to the depreciation of those subjects which had a 
direct bearing on her uncle's profession, viz. physics and 
mathematics. She had been jealous of her uncle, and also of 
a little boy cousin, several years younger than herself. Owing 
to her exclusive devotion to her aunt, her affections had been 
narrowed down, and without her, she lost her own sense of im- 
portance and became disorientated. Only after her aunt's death 



JTEAE IN THE CHILD 53 

did her indiscipline break out at school. As a matter of fact, 
she had buried her love with her aunt, and her deep hostility 
to her uncle reflected itself in relation to every one who was 
in authority over her. First of all, to God who "took her 
aunt " and with whom she would have no more to do ; then to 
her teachers who wished to control her. Hurt by the loss of 
love, she was determined not to love again. The result was 
deplorable, her manner was extremely hard and repelling, and 
though needing more understanding and help than most 
children, she actually gained less, owing to her demeanour. 
She was threatened with removal from school, and general 
shipwreck. But for the insight of one mistress, on whose 
suggestion the Principal sent her for psychological examina- 
tion, she would have been expelled. These intractable 
children must not be judged as if they were mature. This 
child was full of phantasy and at the mercy of her panic- 
stricken feelings. She was in a vicious circle of bad behaviour, 
and unable to free herself. Naughty as she was she did not 
seem so to herself, but rather she felt injured and misunder- 
stood. She was full of a sense of bitter injustice, and uncon- 
sciously interpreted everything in school life in the light of 
this feeling. 

Expulsion from school for conduct of this sort I am inclined 
to think should almost never take place. A child whose hand 
is persistently against his teacher's is a victim of neurosis, 
or fear, or misunderstanding. Sometimes the teacher's com- 
plexes are accountable for the trouble. Change of form or 
teacher at times works a miracle, so may a change of attitude 
on the part of the teacher. The child's behaviour is some- 
times a half-crazy reaction to things blindly misinterpreted. 
Teachers will have to become wise enough to realise that 
there is a psychic conflict at the back of persistent naughtiness. 

This girl had a dream of striking significance. It was as 
follows : " I was alone in the house and some one rang at the 
door. I opened it and my aunt walked in, looking as usual. 
In a minute or two her face fell off, and an ugly face with a 
devilish expression tool: its place." Interpreted analogically the 
dream had the following meaning. She wanted above all 



54 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

other things to have her dead aunt back. Alone in her home, 
that is, in the depth of her nature, she opened the door to the 
mother-imago, that is, to the seductive phantasies of her 
aunt, seeking indulgence and tenderness instead of progress. 
She turned her longing to the past. She was preserving 
in her memory an idea of her aunt which was having a 
devastating influence upon her life and character. It pro- 
duced a wrong attitude to life. In the dream the mask of 
the phantasies fell off, showing her aunt in a terrible aspect. 
This was revealing, for this aspect was really the effect of the 
girl's own devilish attitude to life, in which her hatred was 
projected on to everything and everybody by way of revenge 
against a fate she took as a personal injury. In the girl's 
phantasy the aunt played the role of an indulgent parent. 
By comparison with this tender imago all discipline seemed 
harsh. In the grip of phantasy the girl turned away from the 
difficult path wherever it was found. She did not do noble 
things but dreamt them all day long. 

Another marked case of the effect of a mother-imago 
occurred in a man of fifty, a civil servant, whose mother died 
when he was a month old. He attributed every misfortune 
that befell him in life to the loss of his mother, and in the 
role of a poor orphan of fifty was still looking for the indulgent 
treatment he missed in infancy. Without wishing to 
minimise the serious effect the loss of a mother is to a child, 
or the added risks of misunderstanding and mismanagement, 
from the point of view of individual development it is the 
defects of sloth and self-indulgence which form yet more 
serious factors in life's handicap. This case displayed per- 
sistent evasions of discipline, not by way of active rebellion, 
for the man was religious in temperament, but by a general 
shirking of the growing pains that belong to self-develop- 
ment. Scrupulous and sensitive to an extreme degree he 
could find no conscious means of evasion, and the conflict 
being pushed into the subconscious he was provided with the 
materials for a neurosis which effectually prevented him from 
taking his proper part in life. A smallish income, which gave 
him " neither poverty nor riches," kept him free from want 



FEAE IX THE CHILD 55 

and without opportunities for rash enterprises, but permitted 
indulgence in a chronic neurosis. 

"What this type of neurotic craves for is safety, the 
negation of life. This craving is opposite to that of the naughty 
girl previously referred to. She desires sensation, to give her 
the life she lacks in herself. She unconsciously aims at making 
things happen, the other unconsciously aims at preventing 
things from happening. Both these persons are in bondage 
to the mother-imago. 

Which reaction takes place in a given case will differ 
according to whether the individual in question puts a higher 
value on the inner or the outer world ; or, stated in another 
way, whether the natural tendency of the individual's libido 
is to introversion or extra version. This tendency is an innate 
disposition to adapt by one function in preference to others. 
If this more highly endowed function is too exclusively used, 
it produces one-sidedness, which education should endeavour 
to modify. 

The introverted type tends to undervalue the external 
world in favour of the inner world, and his own ego. He likes 
to think about life and its problems but not to be actively 
involved in the business of living it ; he lives in himself. The 
extravert, on the other hand, loves the object and the objective 
world ; he throws himself into active life, and lives mainly in 
experiences. He undervalues the power of the inner thoughts 
and feelings, and tends to leave them undeveloped and uncon- 
scious, and lays greatest stress on exterior happenings. Another 
way of fitting into life is by means of intuition ; the libido of 
this type turns to the unconscious. The intuitive seems to 
arrive at a rapid understanding of any situation in life by a 
method which is largely subconscious. His individuality is apt 
to be submerged, and he easily identifies himself with any im- 
pressive or striking personality or event. Chameleon-like, the 
personality takes colour from its surroundings, and in its muta- 
bility barely arrives at any essential differentiation. People 
of this intuitive type are universally charming from their 
ready flow of sympathy, but in their unredeemed state are 
little to be relied upon, for they might aptly be described as 



56 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

u side-slippers." Ylany people of the so-called " artistic 
temperament " belong to this category. In schools it is to 
be recognised in those bright-eyed children who are so in- 
terested and quick in the up-take, who. when their intake is 
tested, have already lost the impressions made upon their 
minds. They have the impressionability of water. 1 

These classifications are useful so far as they go, but we 
should apply them tentatively. YYe should try to help 
children to develop along the line of their strength, and at the 
same time we should pay attention to what is weak in their 
character. Thus the inner thoughts and feelings of the in- 
trovert show him the path he must take, and encouragement 
must be given when he tries to exteriorise them, because his 
feelings and actions, possibly rather inferior when judged 
abstractly, are the best he can provide at present. Impatient 
parents or teachers say, K It is so much easier to do this myself 
than to teach So-and-so to do it." This is, however, just what 
we must school ourselves to do, that is, give the child the 
necessity to act, and encourage the effort, even if for the 
present the result is poor. The introvert child shrinks from 
action, and is very self-critical. It is so much easier for him 
to think about a thing or feel a thing interiorly than live it, 
and it often ends there. 

It is difficult for the competent adult to stand aside and 
allow the inefficient child to make mistakes, so that some- 
thing may develop out of them, in fact to permit evil that 
good may come. 

And in regard to extravert children we must not neglect 
the further development of their actions and feelings, but we 
must also be specially tender to their repressed inner life and 
thinking. They are easily discouraged in this matter, and 
prefer to take refuge in the borrowed thoughts of others, for 
since their critical faculty is weak, their own serve them but 
poorly. How often the trouble into which a child falls is 
excused by the words, "I didn't think," and how often the 
answer given is, " But you should have thought," whereas 

1 For a detailed description of the introverted and extroverted types, see 
Jung's " Analytical Psychology," 2nd edition, chap. si. ; xiv. (sect, s.). 



FEAR IN THE CHILD 57 

perhaps we have given them far too little opportunity for 
thinking, by planning to perfection multitudes of things they 
should have been allowed to think out for themselves. 

In so far as they belong to the intuitive type we must 
develop them by converting their excellent intuitions into 
conscious reasoning and understanding, and into action based 
on these. It is one thing to know what is best, it is quite 
another thing to be able to execute it. The intuitive type is 
impatient of those practical things that do not keep pace with 
his quick perceptions. He has difficulty in adapting himself to 
life, and his thoughts and feelings in their nascent state are 
too unsubstantial to bear the stress of reality. To establish 
permanent and reliable characteristics of real worth is, in this 
type, the special difficulty. 

In consideration that life is one whole, and that childhood 
is but a preparation for maturity, I would submit that we should 
allow children to handle fear. What is bad for them is that 
fear should handle them. True education consists, not in the 
removal of all sources of fear, even were that possible — for, 
as we have seen, if all conscious causes are removed it will 
spring up from the unconscious — but in learning to replace 
fear with courage. The perfect love that casts out fear is 
a love developed from within, having an expulsive power of 
its own, the product of slow growing and well-applied energy. 
Curious cases of panic and courage were witnessed in the 
war. Though discipline must be maintained in an army, and 
under the military standard the deserter must be shot, it is 
acknowledged that the bravest man is not he who does not feel 
fear, but he who overcomes it. That man is least likely to run 
away who knows himself capable of doing so ; and who allows 
himself to fear cowardice in his thoughts, and guards against 
it in his acts. That man is most likely to run away who will 
not let himself even dream of such a possibility, and who 
represses into the unconscious a thought so foreign to his 
ideals. This latter man will not allow himself to have fear, 
and it is just such a noble personality who may one day find 
himself fleeing in the grip of fear. The attitude is too hero- 
like. We must learn to face in thought our instinctive 



58 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

tendencies, lest they break out from the unconscious, liberated 
under the dissociating effect of acute emotional strain. 

How can educationalists tackle this problem of fear? 
They must par greater attention to the unseen causes of fear, 
and learn to credit to the proper account reactions that are 
otherwise interpreted. 

Few persons, on first thought, would attribute the reaction 
of pugnacity and aggressiveness to fear, and yet nine times 
out of ten this explains it. Aggressiveness is an over-com- 
pensation, and pugnacity a desire to strike first for fear of 
being struck. In the case of the naughty schoolgirl cited, 
her exaggerated swagger covered a sense of terrible inferiority 
brought to light through the death of the aunt and the con- 
sequent breaking up of the mother identification. 

The reaction of lying is a very common result of fear, and 
is an attempt to evade punishment, partly because it is feared 
on its own account, and partly because punishment brings 
about a sense of inferiority. -Lies, as we have already seen, 
are often told to inflate the personality, because it is felt to 
be inadequate. The following case is another example of 
this. A small boy was left at home one Sunday evening in 
charge of the housemaid. When she went, accompanied by 
the little fellow, to the bedrooms to prepare them for the night, 
he got hold of some tooth-powder from his mother's wash- 
stand, and rubbed it into his hair. This passed unnoticed by 
the absent-minded maid. Enamoured of this new game he 
repeated the process in the visitor's room. Later his parents 
returned from church and found our little hero still bearing 
very peculiar traces on his head. Naturally he was questioned, 
and their critical looks evoked an immediate sense of guilt in 
the child, who said the powder "must have come from the 
ceiling." This lie was not believed, and a whipping was 
threatened if he did not speak the truth. In the first instance 
he dared not confess his fault, because he liked to stand well 
with the grown-ups ; in the second place he dared not confess 
his lie, so he took the whipping. 

After what was considered a judicious interval for repent- 
ance, the child was again asked to tell the history of the 



FEAR IN THE CHILD 59 

powdered hair. By this time he was still further depreciated, 
for the whipping had added humiliation to fear. Now he 
could not confess, and got a second whipping. He was given 
a third chance by the righteous but nonplussed parents. This 
time he made a compromise and confessed to using the tooth- 
powder in his mother's room. At that point the confession 
stopped. By this time the parents, feeling themselves to 
be on the wrong tack, jumped at the partial confession, 
to let the culprit off, and the matter was never referred to 
again. 

But it did not end here for the child. A day or two 
later he went to a picnic. His little soul was full of self- 
depreciation. He simply could not join in the play of the 
other children, but clung to the neighbourhood of the 
adults. They doubtless thought him a sickly child. The 
other children thought him a mug. The day passed slowly, 
until late afternoon, when in some mysterious way the 
clouds of despair dissolved, and he joined in the play. 

To this day — a half-century later — he remembers the 
poignant humiliation that followed this and other whippings ; 
not that the whippings hurt, for they rarely drew a tear. The 
shrinking from his little companions was due to his sense of 
shame — " suppose they knew " — as for all he could tell they 
might, he would lose their good opinion, it seemed better not 
to tempt a fall, so he kept out of their way. 

Surely the aim in such a case should be, not to punish, 
but to find out what the child is afraid of. After the first 
delinquency everything that happened in this series of silly 
errors was brought about by fear on the child's side, and 
stupidity on the parents' part. 

It is clear that this child was very sensitive to the good 
opinion of others. What he needed to learn was self-respect. 
There was no harm in his play, but he intuitively felt the 
criticism of the adults. As a matter of fact, what they were 
troubled about in this case was the lying, not the childish 
nonsense, and they did not see how the matter was working 
in his mind. He lied because he judged himself according to 
his understanding 1 of their adult standards. He could not 



60 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

bear himself without their approval also, and that was the 
unconscious cause of his fear. 

Before we can consistently teach the child to respect him- 
self we must ourselves learn to respect his individuality. That 
does not mean we must come down to the level of his conduct. 
We must remain adults and let him remain a child for the 
appropriate number of years. But we must teach him to 
accept the responsibility for his acts on his own basis. Our 
part consists not in smoothing away all the external diffi- 
culties, nor in repressing ourselves and allowing children to 
exploit us, but in helping with kindness the tracking down of 
the hidden cause of the trouble. This teaches the child to 
educate himself in thinking, and feeling, and understanding. 
It leads to real courage. The tracking down must be done 
with insight. Any harshness in this quest will defeat its own 
ends, for fear will immediately provide a defence against an 
inquisitorial method. It would be well to work the matter 
out first upon ourselves, and apply very tentative methods to 
the child, or an even worse evil may befall him, for he has a 
right to his own privacy. Occasions of real courage are rarely 
wanting in life, though they may all lie practically in the 
moral sphere. No occurrences can be considered trivial where 
fear is concerned. If we wish to understand we must estimate 
the difficulties as the child estimates them. Because we see 
no humiliation in such and such a thing it is not so with him. 
We must penetrate his mind, and help him with his peculiar 
problems regardless of our adult sense of proportion. In every 
case the best antidote to self- depreciation is found in working 
for the thing we are envious of in others, or that we have so 
far acquired only in phantasy from the magic of the fairies. 



IV 

UNCONSCIOUS FACTOES AFFECTING DISCIPLINE i 

In a recent lecture, Mr. Homer Lane told his audience that 
on one occasion there was an epidemic of window smashing at 
the Little Commonwealth ; he wished to stop it, and to do so 
joined the children in window smashing. He did this in the 
belief that if he took part in the performance it would lose its 
charm. He claimed to have achieved his aim. 

This bold educationalist had no misgivings about his 
methods; they were offered as effective examples for social 
education, and the criticism evoked in my mind is embodied 
in what follows. 

It is rather the fashion to decry discipline to-day, and to 
talk as if freedom were a purely external thing. Even the 
very freest of schools or institutions will not exist long before 
rigidity appears. Eules may be absent from the constitution, 
but they will soon arise from sheer necessity. 

Discipline seems to me an essential in education. The 
question is, how much shall be evolved from within, and how 
much imposed from without? In the absence of discipline 
tyranny arises. If the disposal of power were to be put in- 
discriminately in the hands of young children, or in those of 
an under-developed nation, the result would be chaos and 
disorder alternating with tyranny, a state in which there is 
no possibility of education, in the true sense of the word. 
When children are left to govern themselves, the " natural 
leaders " tyrannise over the rest, who are only too ready to 
be slaves. Bullying results. The weaker children grumble 
at their grievances, but are not ready or able to take the 
initiative against them. Cruelty forms a part of the childish 

1 Lecture delivered at the Summer School of Civics and Eugenics, Cam- 
bridge, 1919. 

61 



62 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

or primitive character, and belongs necessarily to the as yet 
undeveloped moral judgment. 

Love of power is innate in humanity. In a crude, 
childish state, this love of power is exercised over other 
persons, or over animals, and displays itself in acts of 
cruelty. The same instincts are seen in primitive com- 
munities in rites of torture. We call such practices sadistic, 
and a large element of sexual gratification mingles in 
them. Masochism in which there is a love of being made 
to suffer, is the counterpart of sadism. It is seen in certain 
children, who noticeably repeat acts of insubordination over 
and over again, until they bring punishment upon themselves 
from some one whom they love. This is also connected with 
sexual pleasure. The sexual element is unconscious, both in 
the child and adult ; only in relatively few cases does it 
become conscious as an inexplicable impulse, and it is generally 
an accompaniment of other nervous or mental symptoms. 

These opposite tendencies can be seen even in religions 
which are highly developed. On the one side we have 
zealous persecutions; on the other, martyrdom and the hair 
shirt. Both tendencies are present in some degree in normal 
persons, one or other predominating, and in matters of educa- 
tion contribute unconscious factors to the question of dis- 
cipline. 

In the highly-developed individual, love of power is 
sublimated into power over the self. The multiplicity of 
good and evil tendencies provides each person with a private 
hierarchy. This power over the self is a spiritual achieve- 
ment, slowly acquired. It is, moreover, a late achievement, 
which follows upon coming to grips with the problems of life. 
These problems are commonly met in every stage of life, and 
education should provide the right training, and take no 
account of the final outcome. Power in the self gives power 
over others, which arrives without striving, and without doing 
violence to human relations. In early life, development is 
helped by love, provided it is not of too indulgent a character. 
The passion that the child has to ally himself with a parent, 
or some older person, has a great value. If he had no instinct 



UNCONSCIOUS FACTORS AFFECTING DISCIPLINE 63 

of love and fear, he would be constantly exposed to danger, 
and the need of coercion. He looks for and needs guidance. 

In an interesting report of the Caldecott Community for 
1916-1917, the question of the child's responsibility is 
discussed. A boy complained it was not fair to expect them 
always to be responsible for their own conduct, for, he said, 
" after all, we are only little." Another child confessed she 
did not like her history lesson, but added, " but I like to be 
made to learn it." Not only the child, but nearly every one 
of us would like to go in the direction of least resistance. 
Perhaps many of us are not a little thankful that stern 
necessity bids us work, for we dare not claim superiority 
over the idle rich, and idle poor, who do not mean to work so 
long as they are otherwise provided for. 

There is a great deal of wisdom in the child's plea, " after 
all, we are only very little." In following the mind of the 
child we shall get hints not only where to confer freedom, but 
where to draw the line and impose directions. I think we are 
in danger to-day of making a god of liberty, and of thinking 
liberty exists where it has as yet had no chance of developing. 
This adoration of liberty is the effect of a reaction from the 
old bad way of a too rigid external rule. It is, however, a 
mechanical and undiscriminating swing of the pendulum from 
one extreme to the other. "What has proved bad is con- 
demned, and without due consideration the polar opposite is 
put in its place. Liberty in school life is not to be aimed at 
as an end in itself, but as a means towards self-government, 
which is the only liberty that can be gained by education 
direct. Discipline is something that is learnt, not taught, 
and every exercise of it should stimulate the learning. 

A large number of my neurotic patients come from the class 
of spoilt children. Many of them complain bitterly of having 
been over-indulged. They regret they were not taught to 
obey, or regret that in some directions there were too few 
restrictions or too many. They complain of their education, 
and blame it, probably more or less unfairly, as well as their 
parents, for their failures in life ; at least, they " studied the 
wrong subjects," or the right ones " in the wrong way." Other 



64 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

neurotics keep a romantic attachment to everything that 
happened to them in childhood. They assure me they never 
had any troubles at that time, and were perfectly happy on 
account of their indulgent treatment. They find themselves 
unable to fit into life because this paradise is now closed to 
them. This rosy report is, of course, to a large extent due to 
an imperfect memory, and is no more accurate than the 
strictures of the previous group. 

Some people claim that their schooldays were the happiest 
of their lives. This is a pathetic admission. It betokens a 
character that has not fulfilled its promise, and is far from 
being a tribute to the real success of their school discipline. 
Such people do well only as long as they work according to a 
plan, and in a community. They accept responsibility and 
fulfil all the conditions within the school, but never learn 
initiative, and are completely lost when they have to run 
themselves. 

All kinds of illusions about the home of childhood, of every 
conceivable mistake or every possible good, attach to the 
images of the parents or their substitutes. The fanciful 
pictures of the father and mother, the schoolmaster and 
schoolmistress, as portraits of the actual people, are just about 
as inaccurate as are the characters in a historical romance. 
They are persons " seen through a temperament." 

In considering the child's problem, whether of delinquency 
or neurosis, we must always distribute the blame for the break- 
down in two directions, viz. the present and the past. 

When a naughty or neurotic child is brought to me part 
of my inquiry is directed towards its immediate emotional 
environment. Sometimes the noxious conditions are so 
obvious that they can be attacked direct. This is by no means 
a generally popular method ; for usually one or two persons 
are involved in the breakdown, most commonly one or both 
parents. Analytical psychology shows us every time that 
the psychic life is a continuity, a fact upon which Freud lays 
such great stress. Former impressions are never lost, but are 
carried along unconsciously in the personality. Whenever an 
obstacle occurs in the present there is always something 



UNCONSCIOUS FACTOES AFFECTING DISCIPLINE 65 

enclosed in the past— that is, in the nnconscious — to which 
the psychic energy can regress, from which conduct can be 
reprinted. The psycho-analytic theories press certain very 
important problems on parents, one being that they are much 
more responsible for their children's breakdowns than was 
formerly supposed. What parents are, counts for so much 
more than what they do or say. It may be that they have 
difficulties in their mutual relations, and show love of power, or 
foolish identifications with one another ; or are self -indulgent, 
and resistant to all changes of habit or idea. These things 
are the result of complexes which should be taken up lest 
they are left over for the children, for if they are not con- 
sciously known they are unconsciously apperceived by the 
younger generation, and are quite fatefully imitated: not 
only in childhood, but later in married or business life ; the 
special unconscious tendency crops up with the special occasion. 
A man said to me recently, " Both my father and grandfather 
took to drink at about forty-five, and our family for genera- 
tions has been notorious for disastrous love affairs round about 
that age." He followed this up with an excuse for his own 
drinking habits, saying, " I suppose one can't help heredity." 
There is, of course, a great deal in heredity, but in such a case 
the psychical inheritance mean3 much more than the physical 
inheritance. It acts like an infection rather than a trans- 
mission. The hereditary character might be broken in any 
generation by taking a new attitude, but it is so much more 
easy to imitate than to take a new path. Adaptation to parents 
who have neglected to work out their own problems forms a 
large part of the spell — if I may speak of the unconscious com- 
pulsion in this way — that has never been broken. So long as 
this continues to operate, it disturbs conduct in innumerable 
ways in childhood and youth, and brings about inferior and 
unstable reactions in thought and feeling in later life. 

In spite of the foregoing it is clear all the blame does not 
belong to the past, for we are not only victims of determinism 
but subjects of free will. 

We must not attribute every disaster that happens to us to 
the unhappy events or training of childhood, because there 

5 



66 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

comes a time when we grow up. Every one theoretically is 
designed to become a mature, independent, free, self-regulating 
individual. Self-development demands courage. Most of us 
deserve a good share of blame for our cowardice in ridding 
ourselves of our deeply rooted childish tendencies. We must 
learn to discriminate with fairness between what blame belongs 
to ourselves, and what belongs to others. We have a natural 
tendency to project our failures on to others and our environ- 
ment, and in so doing we continue to employ the very 
mechanism that has kept us irresponsible, and consequently 
undeveloped hitherto. 

From time to time a good deal of misunderstanding has 
arisen around the psychological idea of the father-complex, 
and this misunderstanding will crop up whenever the question 
is considered from the point of view of consciousness only. 
The phantasies which made the " imago " belong to the un- 
conscious, and the emotions attached to the complex are 
harmful on account of their unrealised and unrecognised 
character. It sounds sometimes as though psycho-analysts 
threw all the blame on the parents. This is not in reality 
the case. What is necessary is to call attention to the less 
recognised difficulties and dangers incidental to the relation 
of child and parent. No human relationship that is valuable 
can escape having its dangerous as well as its beneficent side, 
and least of all can this, which is the first and most important, 
both to the individual and the race. 

But fathers and mothers are only human after all, and as 
a parent afflicted with a very tiresome daughter said to me not 
long ago : " Even a father needs some encouragement, you 
know." In our excess of zeal for the child, we are apt to 
forget the feelings of the parents. They do not commit all 
the errors attributed to them any more than the child does. 
Nor in relation to the child should they sink their own 
individuality. If they have learnt proper respect for the 
individuality in themselves they will respect it in the child. 

In training the child of to-day we are working at a new 
generation of future parents : it will have a fresh set of 
virtues and vices, which will be a special edition of the old. 



UNCONSCIOUS FACTORS AFFECTING DISCIPLINE 67 

It should be an improved edition, however, since we have 
become so very analytical and experimental. In pressing 
these views upon teachers I am asking the thoughtful attention 
of parents, or parent-deputies. I would appeal to the parental 
instincts in you, and not regard teachers as excluded from 
family life. Tou are essentially parents who specialise in 
education. Very small families, and still more, only children, 
are a mistake, and I am inclined to think that a child with 
only one or two parents is also a mistake. One of the 
advantages of school life depends upon the fact that the 
exclusive influence of the parents is modified by that of 
teachers and school-fellows, and other points of view are intro- 
duced. The influence of one parent modifies that of the other ; 
the schoolmaster's influence modifies that of the parents, the 
teachers' that of the head, the schoolfellows' that of the 
teachers, and so forth. I would have the parents remember 
that they are teachers, and the teachers remember that they 
are parent-deputies. This way of taking up their respective 
problems adds understanding and promotes sympathy in aim 
and purpose. 

The greatest importance attaches to early impressions, 
since they serve as patterns for subsequent ones. It is for 
this reason that the parents have a psychical precedence over 
all later comers, and it is why they often block the way to a 
fresh mental attitude. 

As a physician I have repeatedly observed what a 
disastrous effect incompatibility between the parents provokes 
in the child. Children brought up in a stormy home 
atmosphere, or one in which the parents are themselves 
repressed, carry the traces for life. A want of harmony, 
short of actual scenes, has a bad effect on children if for 
no other reason than that too much of the parents' interest 
is occupied in their own inner emotional conflict, and too 
little is free for the concerns of the child. On the other 
hand, a blind uncritical attitude of the parents to each other 
in their rule of the children may be bad, because if one be 
wrong-headed there is no court of appeal, and no re-con- 
sideration of discipline. 



6S PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

The most unfortunate children of all are those who are played 
off by one parent against another. I recall the case of a man 
of extraordinary gifts, and a highly neurotic temperament, 
whose greatest remembered happiness in childhood was of 
those times when his mother, having quarrelled with his 
father, whom she alternately loved and hated, treated her 
little son as a temporary lover in order to rouse her husband's 
jealousy. The moment the conjugal quarrels were made up 
the child was comparatively forgotten and even neglected. 
This way of treating him established in the son an inner 
bondage to his mother, that later on had disastrous effects and 
interfered with his own happiness in married life, almost to 
the point of wrecking it, as well as causing a severe neurosis. 
In this case the son came to identify himself with his father, 
and in later years he unconsciously imitated Ms father's way 
of managing or mismanaging his own wife and children. 

It is on a basis of past experience that the teacher's work 
on the child begins. Each one comes to school with what is 
for him a typical experience. He unconsciously fits the 
teacher into one or other of the parent-types. If his father 
is unjust he will suspect injustice in his teacher. If his 
mother deceives him, he will expect the same treatment at the 
hands of the schoolmistress. Serious misconceptions may arise 
because he is already biassed in his interpretations, and more 
than a little insight is necessary before the effect of his sub- 
jective feelings is recognised. He has to gain his fresh 
experience, and differentiate his feelings further before he 
can do justice to the new types of adult people he meets. 

If we turn from the child to the teacher we note that he, 
too. brings an unconscious mind to the business of education. 
His is more complex than the child's because it has more in it, 
the result of years of experience, accumulated memories and 
rationalisations. There are two main types of teacher, the 
"bound" and the "free"; or those who with regard to their 
work are u under the law," and those who are "under grace." 
If we look round this room we could roughly classify the 
audience into bound and free. Some are very markedly re- 
pressed. The manner of life among women teachers does not 



UNCONSCIOUS FACTORS AFFECTING DISCIPLINE 69 

promote freedom. This is especially the case with girls who 
go straight from school to college, and leave college for posts 
which tax them to the uttermost, in those years when they 
are acquiring practice in the art of teaching. By the time 
they have acquired facility they find themselves caught in 
the machinery of some educational system. As each day ends 
it finds them often with piles of exercises to correct. 1 After 
these are done they are too tired for enjoyment, or it is too 
late to do much, and in order to be fit for to-morrow's work 
they go to bed. I doubt if the life of the average assistant 
master is very much better, though he is apt to take his duties 
less seriously, for which, under the circumstances we cannot 
blame him. Also his physique is generally better, partly 
because he has more outdoor games at school and college, and 
also during his professional life. 

Only a very genuine sense of what belongs by right to 
their own natures enables teachers to stand up against the 
deadening influences of a life of crowded routine. But if they 
have sufficient values in themselves they will escape from 
what is deleterious in the life, and sooner or later, change and 
adapt it to suit their freedom-loving natures. 

As in the case of the child what we should lay stress upon 
is the fact that freedom should be possible. Hence we must 
not ignore or neglect the outward circumstances either in the 
case of teacher or child, because life can be made too hard to 
bear, and many sensitive persons are crushed and sacrificed to 
the machinery. 

I have spoken of the evil effects of a stormy home- 
life on the minds of children. An opposite evil can be 
seen to its highest degree in rigid institutional life, in 
the absence of normal emotions. This colourless life is 



x Among my patients I have a woman teacher who tells me she has 153 
essays to correct weekly. This takes her at least twelve hours, in only three 
of which can she correct in class. This heavy out-of- school work, which is 
usual in secondary schools, robs teachers of their freshness, and their ability 
to " play." It reacts unfavourably on their scholars. They are often obliged, 
though unconsciously, to maintain the most rigid discipline to protect 
their frayed nerves. The more sensitive ones cannot allow a wholesome 
amount of freedom in class on account of their own irritability. 



70 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHAKTASY 

extremely harmful ; children particularly need help towards 
the expression of their love, which pre-supposes a person or 
persons to expend it upon. In normal school or home-life 
unusual things happen frequently. Unusual circumstances 
provoke new thoughts and new feelings, and pliability of 
character is demanded. Think, for instance, of the effect 
which getting up a piece of acting has, on the social life in 
a school or college. It uncovers a number of unsuspected 
qualities, and establishes a host of new relationships within the 
walls. While constant domestic scenes are bad, change is good, 
and institutional life lends itself too little to change. Useless 
routine is bad for teachers and scholars. That symptom which 
teachers have expressed to me as " terminess " would not so 
often be experienced if there were more variety. Perpetual 
change, however, is no more to be recommended than dullness ; 
we do not want to bring about restlessness, but rather stability 
in movement. I suppose we all suspect that routine is 
established more on the teacher's behalf than on the child's. 
Greater liberty is dreaded in school because it is believed to 
entail harder work on the teacher. But I submit this should 
not be so. If it is so, it is because the teacher is divided in 
his own mind, and has not fully worked out the problem of 
personal freedom. If he is afraid, it is because he is still 
dominated by his unconscious childish fears, and so is in a 
manner a child in charge of children, without the courage and 
self-confidence necessary to outlive the experience of the new 
order of things, and the criticism which innovations in methods 
of discipline are likely to entail. A new method may mean 
a less orderly, or at least a noisier class, and so evoke adverse 
criticism from the Head. Here, too, is a conflict with the 
authority-complex. Assistant teachers must learn to be free, 
to take up an independent mental attitude towards the beliefs 
and sentiments of their own generation as epitomised in the 
Head of the school, for these are largely "collective senti- 
ments," i.e. the uncriticised inheritance of former generations. 
In Samuel Butler's novel, " The Way of All Flesh," he deals 
with this conflict between the generations. He depicts four 
generations, and shows the relation in each case between 



UNCONSCIOUS FACTOKS AFFECTING DISCIPLINE 71 

established authority and innovation. The analysis is made 
with wit and remarkable insight as one would expect, but it 
has a note of tragic bitterness, betraying that the conflict was 
a personal one for Butler. In u Life and Habit : " l he says : a It 
is one against a legion when a creature tries to differ from his 
own past selves. He must yield or die if he wants to differ 
widely. . . . His past selves are living in him at this moment 
with the accumulated life of centuries. f Do this, this, this, 
which we too have done and found our profit in it,' cry the 
souls of his forefathers within him. Faint are the far ones, 
coming and going as the sound of bells wafted on to a high 
mountain ; loud and clear are the near ones, urgent as an 
alarm of fire. ' "Withhold/ cry some. ' Go on boldly,' cry 
others. . . . Our former selves right within us and wrangle for 
our possession." 

The poignancy of Butler's personal conflict has been 
revealed to us recently in Festing Jones' admirable biography, 2 
which is well worth study from the standpoint of analytical 
psychology. He shows how crippling is the effect of sub- 
mission to outworn conventions, and proves it is only by 
courage to break away that the young generation obtains the 
freedom that allows their characters to expand and that makes 
individuals of them. 

Individuation, as must be emphasised again and again, is 
the supreme task to which a person is called. What is of 
fundamental importance is that the parent or teacher shall 
himself have achieved an individual character, in fact have 
found himself, and become at one with himself. In education 
you may give a very large degree of liberty, you may place 
a child in the most favourable conditions imaginable, but you 
cannot do this work of differentiation for him. Just what 
liberation and differentiation he himself achieves is his own 
peculiar work, Education should aim at seeing that the pro- 
blems he is presented with are suitable to his age and under- 
standing and at fitting him to take up his responsibilities as 
they come along. Even the most carefully planned system will 

1 ,; Life and Habit." Fifield. 
8 "Life of Samuel Butler. 



72 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

fail if this is not done ; and without any system at all, and 
under the least favourable external conditions, true education 
may be achieved if the right spirit is present. I have heard 
apostles of Montessori, and apostles of other educational 
systems claim that they are supported by psycho-analysis. 
Such a claim in my opinion shows an imperfect understanding. 
If there is one thing psycho-analysis has taught, it is that 
the human mind and soul is in each case "'individual and 
unique," and that no conditions can be made that will exactly 
suit all persons. Consequently what is one child's food is 
another child's poison ; and while some children develop best 
under rigid external discipline and constant attention, others 
are demoralised by it, and thrive best under wholesome 
neglect. Analytical psychology lays stress on the point that 
the child is hindered by his own particular complexes, and 
these are apt to lead to a misunderstanding of the meaning of 
discipline. Unhappily a great deal of so-called discipline is 
applied to the child in an unreasonable way, a way which he 
is as little capable of understanding as a savage of understand- 
ing the reason of a volcanic eruption or of a tidal wave. 

Discipline so applied must appear to be something devas- 
tating that sweeps all before it, especially those young and 
tender growths that have as vet been rooted but lightlv in 
the developing mind. Children do not really resent restric- 
tions which they understand, even though they refuse them 
lip service. They very shrewdly sum up the people who 
cannot keep them in order, and those who make them obey. 
They keep their private opinions about the grown-ups. They 
respect adults not because they are like themselves, but 
because they arc different. They are models to which they hope 
vaguely to attain one day, and it is well for them when the 
models are really superior. They do not like to see their 
models playing the fool. 

It is for this reason I find myself at issue with 3Ir. Homer 
Lane. Because children smash windows that does not in my 
opinion justify him in joining them, even though his motive 
is above suspicion. In matters where the adult is ahead of 
the child, more developed, and wiser, he must expect the 



UNCONSCIOUS FACTORS AFFECTING DISCIPLINE 73 

child to come over to him, he must not identify himself with 
the child by identical behaviour. Can an adult acting in 
such a way feel he is behaving sincerely ? Is he not behaving 
in a way that from the standpoint of his greater development 
cannot be justified ? He is adopting a pose, and is doing 
violence to his own ideals. Suppose instead of window- 
smashing the epidemic of naughtiness took the form of 
torturing cats or robbing a barrow. Is the Head to join 
them also in these things in order that they may come to see 
there is no fun in it ? Where is the line to be drawn ? The 
epidemic might equally be one of showing too demonstrative 
affection, or of silly love-making. Does it not come to this, 
that we must first be fundamentally true to ourselves, and in 
so being we have a stable position from which to take action. 

How are we to obtain this stability, for there is nothing 
harder to come by than satisfactory actuating principles? 
We are greatly assisted by making a practice of looking 
below the threshold of consciousness as well as above it. 
A study of our own unconscious gives us the means of deeper 
insight, although it does not necessarily make teachers of us, 
nor even free men and women. Perhaps the first step to 
stability lies in accepting discipline because we need it. 

It is well that each one of us should learn at some point 
in his life to submit his will to that of another person. In 
the last resort the submission of the soul is made to God, no 
matter under what concept we think of God. But we learn 
to submit to God through submission to some human being. 
In childhood we submit to our parents, not by individual 
choice, but by circumstances already determined for us. In 
school the child submits to his teacher. In analysis sub- 
mission is transferred for a season to the analyst. Not to the 
analyst qua individual, but to the analyst qua representative 
or interpreter of the inner law that exists for each one of us 
in his own unconscious mind. The effect of psychological 
analysis is to bring from the unconscious, out into the light 
of day, just what is the " ruling idea " in a life. This ruling 
idea is the authority to which in nine cases out of ten 
submission has been made unconsciously, that is, under 



74 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

compulsion. This one-sided submission tends to bring about 
a conflict. 

The great value of analysis lies in changing the unconscious 
authority into a conscious one in accordance with the law of the 
whole personality. The process is a liberating one, for we often 
find that the ruling idea, once it is abstracted from the 
phantasies that are attached to it, is no longer a bogey. We 
often find that it is after all no longer an authority, and that 
its long unconscious reign is over. The overthrown authority 
must now be succeeded by another, this time one of conscious 
making, and no longer to be regarded as permanent or sacro- 
sanct, but as necessarily to be constantly transformed into one 
commensurate with our growing and liberated life. But " an 
idol overthrown is still a god." We have great difficulty both 
in recognising the power of such gods, and in freeing ourselves 
from them. The authority of the educator or analyst should 
prove a stepping-stone from compulsion to freedom. 

An intensive study of the self quickly teaches us that in 
many respects we are other than we thought ourselves. We 
are constantly deceived about ourselves and our motives, and 
just where we are self-deceived we tend to be deceived about 
others. For what exists unconsciously in ourselves tends to be 
projected on to others ; we see the beam in our brother's eye 
and neglect the effect produced by the mote in our own. 

Especially when we have to deal with children our vision 
should be clear, and our feelings just and free, and when we 
act as parents, teachers, doctors, or priests, our personal bias 
should be as much in abeyance as possible. We may no 
longer think of the world as being what we would like it to 
be. We must take the responsibility of regarding the world 
as it is, and deal with human nature on the basis of its 
fundamental instincts and tendencies, good and bad, animal 
and divine. 

Why do so many valuable educational experiments and 
hopeful schemes come to grief? Chiefly because we are 
idealists who will not accept the conditions, and the limita- 
tions, and work in accordance with the laws of life. We must 
do better than pursue impossible ideals. We must learn to 



UNCONSCIOUS FACTOES AFFECTING DISCIPLINE 75 

appreciate not only material reality, but psychic reality, and 
" idealise our reals " by making use of what material we have 
at our disposal, including the instincts which are our heritage, 
and which contain the motive springs of life. 

It is useless to think the solution of educational problems 
lies in such devices as co-education or segregation of the 
sexes. It is not in schools, or nunneries and monasteries, or 
nature cults, in special clothing or in nakedness, in vege- 
tarianism or prohibition, in Anglicanism or Spiritualism or 
Nonconformity, nor in any " ism " under the sun, but in the 
further development of our humanity. Let us develop the 
individual ; as Pindar says, " let us find out what we are and 
become it." 

Systems fail, especially in education, where children are 
the subjects of experiment, because not enough allowance is 
made for human nature itself. When we expect too much we 
over-strain the children and discourage ourselves. Not only 
the intellect if too fiercely forced, but the virtues also, become 
attenuated. Human nature is both better and worse than we 
think it. If we make a new Eden the serpent will again 
enter it. The history of the G-arden of Eden will be repeated 
inevitably in each individual soul, until man, arriving at re- 
sponsibility, learns how to fit himself into life in a way that 
does justice to all sides of his human nature. 

There is one scholar upon whom we may legitimately 
practise every method of discipline or indiscipline, and that is 
the self. We must find out what we are. Where do our 
wishes lie ? What do we think when we allow ourselves to 
think without reservation ? What do we feel when we remove 
from ourselves the restraints of will and habit ? How much of 
all this that seems new or dangerous to us can and should be 
lived ? What would its personal effect be, what its general 
effect ? What is the meaning of the wealth of phantasy that 
exists in the psyche ? 

In my experience few are able to make a personal study of 
the unconscious mind without some disturbances in equilibrium, 
and perhaps a temporary disorientation. For this reason a 
superficial approach to the subject is to be deplored. 



76 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

The first effect of contact with the unconscious is often 
one of fear and dislike, this is especially the case with neurotic 
people who suffer from unwelcome intrusions of the un- 
conscious mind into consciousness. 

When a healthy person takes up this study of his own free 
will, he should remember he is destined to dive into that very 
region whence neurotic fears issue. Things will have to be 
considered that have hitherto been ignored. Bepression, even 
if mistaken, is incidental to man's mental progress, and the 
releasing of repression liberates not only valuable and much 
needed energy, but it also allows skeletons to start into activity 
which display extraordinary animation, showing that they were 
not put into cupboards for nothing. 

But for those who can face these things without doubt new 
values will be found, and an enrichment of life should ensue. 
In any case, the unconscious is a fact of our psychical life, and 
whether we like it or not, we are up against it in education as 
elsewhere. 



THE USE OF SUBLIMINAL MATERIAL IX 
ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY l 

I have chosen for the subject of my paper the analytic use of 
subliminal material, believing this to be something of interest 
to all of us. The Society for Psychical Keseareh ha3 made 
intimate studies of various subconscious phenomena, in a 
manner quite unfamiliar to me. I, on the other hand, have 
been acquiring a practical knowledge of the working of the 
unconscious part of the mind in particular ways which are 
probably unfamiliar to many of my readers. There should 
be here a promising field for discussion, and I welcome the 
opportunity now given me of opening it. 

I shall use the word " unconscious " in the sense intro- 
duced by Freud. In a paper published by this Society he 
said, " Let us call ' conscious ' the conception which is present 
to our consciousness and of which we are aware, and let this 
be the only meaning of the word ' conscious ' ; as for latent 
conceptions, if we have any reason to believe they exist in the 
mind — as we have in the case of memory — let them be denoted 
by the term ' unconscious.' " Freud's " unconscious " corre- 
sponds in part to the "subliminal'"' of Myers, viz. "those 
thoughts and feelings lying beneath the ordinary threshold of 
consciousness, as opposed to the supraliminal lying above the 
threshold." Freud distinguishes between the preconscious 
and the completely unconscious layers of the unconscious 
mind. The contents of the preconscious have once been 
conscious and they can fairly easily become conscious again, 
if suitable stimuli occnr. The completely unconscious part of 

1 This paper was read at a General Meeting of the Society for Psychical 
Research, January 31, 1917. Proceedings, vol. sss. Reprinted by kind per- 
mission. 

77 



78 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

the inind has contents which have never yet reached con- 
sciousness at all. According to Freud, this material remains 
unconscious because of a powerful resistance against its 
admission into consciousness. It is connected with infantile 
wish-tendencies which are incompatible with the adult think- 
ing or feeling. It is kept unconscious by a mechanism which 
he calls "repression." The barrier produced by repression 
can only be surmounted with great difficulty. It may be 
psychologically "rushed," so to speak, as in ah attack of 
mania, where the unconscious material breaks through into 
consciousness and holds the field in a disastrous manner ; or it 
may be systematically brought up, as in psychoanalysis. 

For Freud the unconscious mind exists as the result of 
repression. Jones says, 1 "The splitting of the mind into 
conscious and unconscious processes represents an acquired state 
of affairs, and not a primary situation." This acquired uncon- 
scious mind Jung calls the personal unconscious, and adds the 
concept of the impersonal unconscious, which is the historic 
mind, containing the instincts and primordial forms of later 
psychological functions. 

The personal elements of the unconscious mind have been 
acquired in the attempt of the individual, to adapt to society. 
This is a task which presents special difficulties to people who 
deviate from the normal. To lead a satisfactory life one must 
develop as an individual and also as a member of a group, 
and growth in the one direction should be complementary, not 
antagonistic to growth in the other. In analysis of the un- 
conscious mind we soon find how great is the conflict between 
these two sets of claims. The strife is not only due to repres- 
sion, but is also a result of the need for further self-expression. 
The unconscious mind should not be regarded merely as infantile 
and primitive. It is the creative mind and contains all the 
possibilities of future development. Moral instincts 2 are as 
much an essential content of the unconscious mind as are the 
sexual instincts upon which Freud has laid such exclusive 

1 "Papers on Psycho-Analysis, " p. 624 

8 Trotter calls these gregarious instincts, see " Instincts of the Herd in 
Peace and War," 



THE USE OF SUBLIMINAL MATEKIAL 79 

stress. Primitive man, our common ancestor, made taboos and 
imposed barriers upon what he unconsciously felt to be his 
more dangerous instincts. This fact is of great significance, 
and justifies belief in man's innate tendency to surpass himself. 
To advert from the origin of subconscious phenomena to 
their actual characteristics, we observe that the unconscious 
mind expresses itself in curiously veiled symbols. Freud 
attributes this veiling mainly to the activity of a hypothetical 
"censor," who cannot allow a more direct expression of un- 
conscious infantile wishes, because they are distasteful and 
unwelcome to the conscious personality. Jung gives little 
credit to the censor, and sees in the veiled symbolism the 
primitive human mode of thinking, of which the dream is a 
survival, and which is shown also in the construction of myths 
and in folk-lore. This difference in emphasis between Jung 
and Freud leads to widely different results. The Freudian 
interpretation of symbols is monotonous and stultifying. 
Jung's interpretation reveals a richness in the content of 
dreams which is fully in accordance with the creative and 
evolutional character of the human mind. 

Let me now turn to psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is a 
technique for discovering and analysing the contents of the 
unconscious mind. It is a therapy, specially beneficial in 
illnesses caused by disturbances in the unconscious region of 
the mind, functional diseases such as hysteria, and other 
psychoneuroses. Historically, it may be regarded as an off- 
spring of hypnotism, as chemistry is an offspring of alchemy. 
In each case the offspring differs widely from the parent. 
In hypnotism unconscious mental processes are covered up 
from the patient ; in analysis they are laid bare. The history 
of hypnotism is too well known to need comment here, save 
to say that most psychoanalysts of repute have hitherto come 
to the newer therapy via the old. Thus psychoanalysis owes 
a debt to hypnotism, and to those pioneers who initiated the 
use of a psychic remedy for psychic disease. 

Hysteria and hypnotism show us the mind in dissection 
or dissociation. Analysis deliberately seeks to resolve the 
mind, even the morbid and distraught mind, into its elements. 



80 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

It brings repressed material with its attached emotions to 
view. This naturally has a somewhat disturbing effect on 
the individual, for it involves a kind of operation on the mind. 
But as with surgical operations, its aim is not only to disturb 
and dissect, but to resect and heal, leaving the condition 
healthy, with the function restored. The physical healing 
and renewal correspond with the synthetic or reconstructive 
side of analysis. 

In hypnosis an apparent synthesis is obtained. This acts 
effectively for a time, and may suffice. There is, however, 
considerable risk that under a severe accidental emotional strain 
dissociation will recur. The process of synthesis in hypnotism 
is not a conscious one. It is inexplicable to the patient, who 
accepts it gratefully as something akin to the miraculous. 
In psychoanalysis the cause of the dissociation and the means 
of the synthesis are made apparent to the patient. The 
resulting cure should theoretically withstand all the events of 
life. Of course this is not always so. TVe have to acknow- 
ledge our share of failures. Analysis is not a panacea. Failure 
is not always due to the method however : there are patients 
who do not wish to be cured at the cost entailed, for we 
are concerned here with other wishes than those which are 
conscious. It must be remembered that much of the work 
is done on very nervous people, and that these very sufferers 
are asked to contribute a great amount of effort. They must 
be people of good will, capable of co-operation. At first sight 
this demand on the neurotic, though wholesome, seems very 
hard. He is extra sensitive and painfully self-conscious. He 
unconsciously protects hiruself from the mental sufferings to 
which his peculiar make of mind renders him susceptible, in 
one of two ways : either he shuts himself up within himself 
and develops symptoms such as phobias, which tend to 
deliver him from his environment ; or else he develops 
hysterical symptoms, such as blindness, or paralysis, which 
tend to throw him on the sympathy of people around him. 
In the first case he turns his psychic energy inwards by a 
process of introversion; in the second he turns it outwards 
by a process of extraversion. In each case the same purpose 



THE USE OF SUBLIMINAL MATERIAL 81 

is served — a modification of the individual's actual relation to 
the world, and to the demands made upon him by daily life. 
Either reaction is the outcome of an unconscious childish 
attitude of mind. Psychoanalysis aims at helping the patient 
to find the unknown causes of this attitude, and his under- 
standing must accompany the analytical process at every step. 
The origin of the first mental dissociation was in the uncon- 
scious, and it is there we must ultimately find the means for 
the desired synthesis. Whatever in the morbid symptoms is 
not understood — not merely intellectually but emotionally 
too — contains a possibility of present failure and future break- 
down. Jung says, " In psychoanalysis the infantile personality 
must be set free from the unconscious hindrances to its 
development in a rational manner. The energy which is thu3 
freed serves for the building up of a personality matured and 
adapted to reality, who does willingly and without compulsion 
everything required of him by reality." l The Scotch have 
a way of describing a man by saying (< there's not much to 
him." In analysis we find there is much more to a man than 
he was aware of, and this applies generally to the healthy and 
to the morbid. It is not merely a question of resources — it 
is one of energy. It is useless for a country at war to contain 
rich coalfields if there is no one to work them. The nervous 
invalid is in a similar position. He has large resources which 
he cannot develop and which are an actual encumbrance to 
him, because they offer a temptation to the enemy, and use 
up his own energy in an unproductive way in guarding 
them. 

This brings us to an important psychoanalytic concept, 
called the libido theory. It was first introduced by Freud, 
but greatly extended by Jung, and I shall explain it entirely 
from the standpoint of the Swiss school. The term libido 
is used by Jung as equivalent to psychic energy, which is 
the central impulsive or propulsive force in human nature 
and human actions. It may also be described as passionate 
interest, desire, inclination, or striving. It may be applied 
to one object or another, from which follows the shifting of 

1 " Psychology of the Unconscious," p. 479. 

6 



82 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

interest from one thing to another. Like physical energy it 
may be kinetic or potential, i.e. active or latent. 

Miss Maria Moltzer l says : " Libido can perhaps best be 
described as erYect or capacity for effect. It is capable 
of transformation from one form to another. The meta- 
morphosis can be a sudden one, as, for instance, when one 
function replaces another in a moment of danger ; or it can 
be a gradual one, as in sublimation, where the libido is led 
oyer a long and difficult path, through a variety of forms 
into a different function." Thus the combative instinct which 
makes war between nations may be directed to the struggle 
for international peace. One has only to think of a life's 
progress to realise that the energy which was once applied 
to activities infantile in character, and appropriate during 
infancy, has to take other forms at later stages of growth. 
The libido once given automatically to sucking is later 
devoted to eating, which is a conscious process. The love 
which was originally given solely to the mother, that is 
to an undifferentiated object within a group standing in the 
mother relationship, is gradually applied to the differentiated 
mother, to the nurse, father, other members of the family, and 
later to companions, teachers, lovers, and causes. ~\Ye should 
expect that where development is normal, the libido would be 
differently applied at six, sixteen, and sixty, and, to judge by 
external behaviour, this is generally the case. But the libido 
must be looked for on both sides of the threshold of conscious- 
ness ; not the whole of it is in the conscious life. Some is 
with our subliminal memories and imaginations. There is a 
tendency for too much of it to be applied below the threshold 
of consciousness. This is particularly the case with neurotic 
people, for the reason that those who cannot live agreeably 
to themselves in the real world are led to create a world 
of phantasy to live in. This produces a thinning of the 
forceful currents of life, and in some subjects the thinning is 
so extreme as to result in complete dissociation of the person- 
ality — a fact illustrated by the classical cases frequently 

1 " A Conception of the Libido. "' Paper read before the Zurich Society 
for Analytical Psychology, 1916. 



THE USE OF SUBLIMINAL 3IATEKIAL 83 

referred to in the literature of the Society for Psychical 
Eesearch. Absent-minded acts show a temporary and partial 
dissociation ; we are not " on the spot," as we say ; that is, the 
libido has momentarily dipped into the subconscious. 

In the analytic work we strive to find where this missing 
energy is located. "We actually find that much of it is applied 
to phantasy building. We all know what it is to day-dream ; 
but what we do not know so well is that day-dreams occur 
without our being even aware of them —they may be entirely 
subliminal. 

A person may be said to be approximately normal when 
the libido is well applied, and flows easily from point to point, 
as required in thought, feeling, and action. A person is 
neurotic when the stream tends to stagnate and remain in 
lacunae, or to run in too many directions at once. He is then 
like the owner of treasure who has no means of realising it. 
There are people of many talents whose energy is lacking, 
and people of small talents whose energy is all available, and 
it is adapted energy, after all, that tends to make one indi- 
vidual more effective than another. There are some who 
have ample energy, but who are so desirous that they expend 
it extravagantly in overwork, so that their resources are always 
at a low ebb. The unconscious is the conserver of our 
memories, and among these our libido should be able to move 
freely, selecting one or another and inserting them into con- 
sciousness at the right moment. In the psychic sense our 
well-being may be said to depend upon a good rapport with 
the unconscious mind. 

A neurotic person is deficient in control of his psychic 
energy. In a severe case he either cannot direct it to the 
useful end he desires, or else he uses it in an exaggerated 
manner. He is a victim to the phantasies formed in his own 
unconscious mind. In order to cure him, the analyst has 
recourse to dream or phantasy material, which arises from 
the same source as the hysterical symptoms and is of a similar 
nature. The symptoms are phantasy formations created by a 
displacement of energy from the psychical to the physical 
realm, consequent on the fact that to some natures physical 



S4 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

suffering is easier to bear tlian mental suffering, and offers an 
escape from it. The nenrotic person is not to be regarded as 
inferior to other people : he is very often superior, but more 
sensitive, and far too thin-skinned. He is not alone in 
making phantasies ; phantasy formation is a perfectly normal 
mechanism ; it is a function few of ns would wish to be 
without. Every inventor makes phantasies before he makes 
his invention ; the philosopher does the same in the process 
of arriving at his new concepts. The business man and the 
lover equally pave the way for their ventures with day- 
dreams ; the mother plans for the Christmas holidays in her 
phantasies. With the poet and artist their poems and paint- 
ings are more or less direct expressions of the unconscious 
mind. They may in a very special sense be called mediums 
of the subconscious. Shakespeare says : 

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, 

Such shaping fantasies that apprehend 

More than cool reason ever comprehends. 

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, 

Are of imagination all compact : 

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold ; 

That is the madman : the lover all as frantic. 

Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt : 

The poet"s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ; 

And, as imagination bodies forth 

Z'zi :::~; c: :iiirrs urir.: - ^!. ~zi -;;:'; pen 

Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 

A local habitation and a name. 

Such tricks hath strong imagination, 

That, if it would but apprehend some joy, 

It comprehends some bringer of that joy : 

Or in the night, imagining some fear, 

How easy is a bush supposed a bear ! * 

"' The unconscious holds the germs of future conscious 
contents/' 2 dreams and phantasies help us to arrive at new 
ideas. It also is compensatory to consciousness in its effect ; 
its normal tendency is to produce a balance in the personality. 
to tone down and soften extreme tendencies, and supply a 
point of view missing from consciousness. A person who pays 

1 " Midsummer-Fight's Dream," Act v., Sc. i. 

1 Jung's " Conception of the Unconscious. Collected Papers, '' chap. sv. 



THE USE OF SUBLIMINAL MATERIAL 85 

too little attention to imagination is apt to be sterile. When 
we say he is without it, we recognise a defect in his character. 

A case which illustrates the effects of subconscious 
phantasy is that of a Miss A., a young woman of thirty. 
She was brought to me because she had violent attacks of 
hiccoughs lasting from one hour to a whole day. She had 
an innocent mindless expression, and a high childish voice . 
She had at one time been cleTer and capable, for at seventeen 
she was forewoman of a room in a blouse factory, where 
she showed originality in designing and cutting out. She 
exhibited the usual belle indifference to her symptom so 
characteristic of the hysteric, for though the hiccoughs were 
of such violence as almost to jerk her off the couch on which 
she was lying for my examination, she yet wore the placid 
expression of an infant suffering from painless eructations of 
wind. Her guileless baby-talk was equally remarkable. I 
was obliged to send this patient into a nursing home, much 
against her will ; and without giving her any other treatment 
I began an analysis, which was at first carried on every day 
for one hour. One of her early dreams was the following : — 

Something was wrong with me, but what, I did not know. 
I was having advice from a gentleman who seemed to be a 
surgeon. He did a lot of talking with mother. He then 
lifted a little girl on to a wooden horse and pushed the horse 
and child into a pond. The child was wearing one of my 
dresses. We all stood and watched her sail away. After that 
the doctor went into a shop, still talking. My sister Maggie 
said, " That's the worst of Dr. Long." 

Here the dream amusingly hits off the exact situation. 
Without giving details I will just say that my patient 
identified herself with the little girl on the horse by the 
dress she was wearing ; the surgeon was identified with 
myself as the " doctor who talked so much." The " pond " 
brought up as a free association a previous dream. In 
this dream she was reluctantly coming to my consulting 
room for the first time, and as she crossed the street to 
my house a great pond spread out before her into which 
she fell; this she had called the Slough of Despond, for the 



86 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

thought of being treated medically filled her with despair. 
She did not want to go to a doctor ; that is, unconsciously 
she did not want to get well. My talkativeness was a witty 
and revengeful criticism by her unconscious, of my persuasive- 
ness in making her come, against her wish, for a second visit, 
and finally talking her into a nursing home. The pond, then, 
was a symbol for this terrible adventure of treatment. She is 
accompanied in the dream by her mother, and indeed by her 
whole family, for this grown-up baby is never far, psycho- 
logically at least, from her mother's apron strings and her 
childhood's companions. 

The dream gives a picture of the childishness of her 
attitude. The little wooden horse was understood to be her 
psychic energy, which was a feeble aft air — as unsuitable to 
her present age of thirty as a child's toy would be as a 
steed. The argument between the mother and the surgeon 
represented the tempest of emotions roused by making her 
conflict conscious. The conflict was between her childish 
adaptation to her mother, and the new demands made upon 
her that she should sacrifice the shelter which her symptoms 
had hitherto procured for her, and follow the analytical push 
out into life. 

The make-up of this dream seems very like the story one 
tells children when one wants to point a moral. The un- 
conscious is not a moralist by intention, but it is a picture 
maker, a weaver of parables. The meaning of the dream is 
arrived at, not from the manifest content (that is, the part of 
the dream which is remembered, and which probably is only 
a fragment of the whole), but from the latent content. This 
latent content is to be gathered from the free associations, 
which it is the aiialyst's business to stimulate and discuss 
in the time devoted to the analysis of the dream. The mean- 
ing of the dream lies on both sides of the threshold of 
consciousness. It is the analyst's art to bring the two into 
juxtaposition, so that understanding penetrates to the patient. 

Earlier in Miss A.'s case there had been an attack of 
blindness of hysterical nature. It had occurred at the age of 
seventeen in this way. She travelled backwards and forwards 



THE USE OF SUBLIMINAL MATERIAL 87 

daily between home and factory in the city. One evening, on 
her way home, she was alone in the carriage. As the train left 
the station a working man swung himself into the carriage, 
sat opposite to her and suddenly exhibited himself in an 
alarming and indecent way. She was rooted to her seat, 
unable to move or speak. A minute or two later he swung 
himself* out as the train slowed up to enter the next station, 
which was Miss A.'s destination. She ran the three-quarters 
of a mile between the station and her home, arriving breathless 
and almost beside herself with terror and excitement. The 
only account she gave to her parents was "that a man had 
followed her from whom she ran." Three weeks later, as she 
was examining the work one of her girls brought for inspection, 
darkness fell upon her. She asked, " What has happened to 
the light ? " Nothing had happened, but she had suddenly 
become blind, and had to be led home. This blindness passed 
away in the course of a few weeks, although her sight remained 
inadequate, and rendered her comparatively helpless for some 
years. She was no longer able to go out to work, and lost all 
her initiative, and though she became helpful in her mother's 
house, could take no responsibility. She constantly had 
hallucinations of being pursued ; and once, like Luther, who 
threw an inkstand at the devil, she threw everything she had 
in her hands at an equally visionary figure which came in at 
her door. Her second severe psychical illness was that accom- 
panied by the violent hiccoughs described. She ( was permanently 
cured of these within a week, and her cure has been lasting. 

Several months ago she came to me again, looking anxious, 
and told me that no less than five times in the previous few 
weeks the kettle and saucepans had fallen out of her hands, 
the contents being spilled. The last incident of this kind 
was that she had washed up the tea-cups and absent-mindedly 
put them into a large enamel jug to carry to the dresser — "a 
stupid thing," she said, which she " had never done before." 
Five minutes later she emptied the jug into the sink, smashing 
all the crockery thereby! She also said that for several 
nights she had been wakened from sleep hearing her name 
called, and had gone to her friend, who was ill at the time 



88 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

and who was to her an adopted mother, saying, " What did 
you call me for ? " But, like the infant Samuel, she found 
the voice was a subjective one. These acts are what is called 
" symptomatic," and result from a splitting of consciousness. 
They show the tricky behaviour of the unconscious, and their 
counterpart is sometimes experienced at seances. My patient 
had been neglecting to pay proper attention to the workings 
of her unconscious mind, and her phantasies had once more 
got her partially in their grip. They were a signal from her 
unconscious that she was in some danger of a fresh breakdown. 
Analysis of a few dreams soon brought to light the new 
problems which were disturbing her, and helped her to get 
her energy on the right track again. Miss A. has acquired 
insight enough into the analytic method to realise that she 
must be on her guard, and take preventive measures to avoid 
a breakdown, whenever she is disturbed by symptomatic acts 
of the kind described. In such symptoms one is able to 
recognise the beginnings of a psychic illness, a type of 
suffering upon which the use of a thermometer and the 
counting of a pulse can throw little light. 

I now propose to give the analysis of a dream in some 
detail. A dream may be interpreted on its objective or on its 
subjective aspect, or from both points of view, supplementing 
each other. The line to be followed is indicated by the 
remarks of the dreamer. On the subjective side, all the 
personages that occur in the dream are dramatisations of 
the dreamer himself under various aspects, more or less dis- 
guised, and all the things they do and say represent different 
conflicting feelings or ideas of his. The dream characters 
are of the same nature as the different characters that appear 
in cases of multiple personality, or the personifications of 
automatic phenomena. To demonstrate this in the inter- 
pretation of dreams is generally enlightening to the person 
under analysis, because few people realise the simultaneous 
existence of opposite feelings in themselves. In making the 
following analysis I asked my patient to give her free 
associations, taking the various dream-parts as texts. In 
order to arrive at these, the dreamer should be as passive as 



THE USE OF SUBLDIIXAL MATERIAL 89 

possible in regard to the ideas which come into the mind, 
shonld repeat them without self-criticism, and should reject 
nothing, no matter how far-fetched or irrelevant it may seem. 
This, though it sounds easy, is exceedingly difficult. 

3Iiss B., the dreamer, is of the intellectual type. She is 
aged forty-five and has been engaged in teaching and literary 
work. She is suffering from inability to walk any distance, 
and has vague abdominal pains. She can walk about in the 
house and in her own room with a firm elastic step, but out 
of doors she is assailed by fears, and has to lean against 
supports. A distance of fifty yards seems well-nigh impossible 
to her. She has to come to my house in a cab, a walk of some 
four minutes. She once took this walk at my suggestion, and 
as a consequence had a collapse. She has been ill for seven 
years. Up to that time she earned her living, and led a most 
praiseworthy life. She was the youngest child of an unhappy 
marriage. Her father was a heedless spendthrift, her mother 
a patient Griselda, of almost saintly forbearance. The two 
were incompatible, and this youngest daughter, clever and 
sensitive, gradually sided with the mother, though undoubtedly 
most of her love was given to her father. As she grew up 
she soon put her talents to use, and earned an income, which 
later on she devoted largely to her parents' support and 
succour. Her holidays were almost exclusively spent in the 
family home, from a sense of duty. Here she underwent 
constant anxieties, and to a certain extent stood between the 
parents. It seemed to her in reviewing her life that it was 
one of perpetual sacrifice and self-less devotion. 

In appearance the lady is quiet and self-respecting. She 
has a clear skin and well-cut features. She looks healthy, 
though at times she is very pale and worn, and she very soon 
tires. Her animation springs up quickly in response to 
intellectual or ideal subjects. Her expression i3 lively. If 
anything offends her she compresses her lips, and very angry 
looks sometimes dart from her eyes. This change of ex- 
pression indicates unconscious feelings and gives one the 
impression of slumbering fires. 

She brought the following dream for analysis : — 



90 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

Dream. — I see myself in a strange room, there are people 
in it, but I do not know any of them. A gentleman of the 
company, who seemed to know me and to have some interest 
in me, asked me to come with him, as he wanted to show me 
a school building. I took my house shoes off and put them 
somewhere behind the leg of a piano, and put a blanket round 
my shoulders to go out, as it appeared to be raining. 

When we reached the road outside, I saw on the left a 
cluster of beautiful blue-bells ; farther down the road, on the 
same side, hung a great clump of wild broom in full flower. 
The road and the flowers were bathed in a beautiful clear 
light. The school building was some distance beyond the 
flowers, but we did not get to it, nor did I see it. I knew it 
was there. 

While we stood for a moment on the road, I saw an animal 
glide out suddenly from among the blue-bells ; in shape and 
size and in its sinuous movement, though not in colour, it 
looked at first like a weasel. A beautiful phosphorescent light 
shone right down its back. It glided swiftly across the road, 
and as it went it became much larger, and now the light on 
its back was no longer to be seen. It settled itself down on 
a low bank on the opposite side of the road with its back to 
us, and I now saw its coat was spotted greyish black and 
white and that it was quite a large animal. I asked what 
animal it was, as I did not recognise it, and was told it was 
a wolf, and I wondered if we had not better move away from 
its neighbourhood when I heard that. 

There was something very sinister in the appearance of 
the creature, as it very quietly stretched itself out, apparently 
quite oblivious of our presence, but one felt in it a certain 
indefinable something that rather expressed or betokened 
extreme watchfulness, power, and knowledge. Then it rose up 
slowly, crossed the road back to the blue-bell clump and 
stood among the flowers ; but now it was no longer a wolf, 
but a low-type woman with coarse, hard features, a hooked 
nose and unpleasant aspect. Her clothes were not ragged, 
but plain and tidy, and she wore a bonnet. She was talking 
to some one who stood near her. The dream ended there. 



THE USE OF SUBLIMINAL MATERIAL W 

The following are some of the dreamer's free associations : 

School. — I have been associated with schools practically all 
my life and am interested in them. In Sweden I visited 
several and taught in some there. The schools in Sweden 
for the people are infinitely better equipped than ours. I 
have visited schools in Switzerland and in Paris., and have 
been present at language lessons given in schools in France 
and Switzerland. I have taught in schools in Wales and 
England. 

Blanket. — Suggests bed and warmth ; one would not use 
a blanket as covering for the body except in a case of gTeat 
urgency, and where it was the only covering available, such as 
in shipwreck, or fire, etc. 

House Shoes suggest my present pair, which are of velvet 
and very comfortable, but nearly worn out. I always like to 
wear house shoes in the house. 

Piano. — Calls up the pleasure I have in being able to play 
a little ; but I like a good piano and sweet and rather muffled 
tone. Playing gives my fingers something to do and in this 
way is a satisfaction and pleasure, apart from the much 
deeper enjoyment of the music. 

Blue-hells. — A stretch of blue-bells in spring gives me 
infinite pleasure. I don't like spring to pass without having 
this pleasure ; I have missed something very helpful and 
beautiful if it does. I know of many blue-bell woods, all 
very beautiful, in Wales and also in Somersetshire. 

Broom. — Grows more gracefully than gorse, without 
prickles, is less common, is very beautiful in a mass, although 
you seldom see it so. White broom is more beautiful than 
yellow. I can think of three gardens where there is some 
very lovely white broom. 

Phosphorescent light. — Recalls glow-worms and fire-flies. I 
have seen the former in Ireland. This particular light strikes 
you as different from any light you have ever seen. I have 
noticed it on old tree stumps. I have translated a fairy story 
from the Swedish in which hobgoblins used rotten tree stumps 
for lights. 

Wolf. — Hungry, fierce, cruel. I have seen wolves only in 



92 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

Zoos; have translated stories from the Swedish in which 
wolves figure largely ; belong to cold northern climates now. 

Browning has written a striking poem, " Ivan Ivanovitch," 
in which a mother throws her children one by one out of a 
sledge to the wolves, so that she may escape herself. 

Greyish black and white coloured coat. — Does not suggest 
a wolf ; colours out of place ; I like a decided black and 
white. 

Woman low-type. — I saw a woman of this type at a railway 
station in London some months ago ; such a face repels and 
saddens me. 

The telling of this dream with its free associations 
occupied the first part of the analytical hour, which I am 
briefly describing. The latter part of the time was taken 
up in weaving the dream parts and their associations into 
one fabric in order to obtain the interpretation. 

As this proceeding goes along, fresh-springing associations 
are added by the dreamer, and some analogies may be intro- 
duced by the analyst (the hermeneutic method) 1 from history, 
mythology, or experience. 

The dream related gives, through its analysis, the patient's 
subconscious view of the present situation, and of her im- 
mediate problems and her own psychological attitude. It 
exhibited her orientation, for hitherto we only knew she was 
ill and in need of treatment, other treatments having failed 
to cure her. We knew that her illness was more psychical 
than physical ; we could see she was a conscientious person, 
with a somewhat saint-like character; but without such a 
dream one would hardly know where to begin to work. 

She is in a strange room, 2 as indeed she is here in London ; 
there are other people in it ; she knows none, that is, she 
does not personally know any one who has been analysed; 
she would " like to know what effect it has on others." 

A gentleman who seemed to have some interest in her 
shows her the school building. The analyst is interested to 

1 See Jung's " Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology," 2nd editioD, 
p. 468. 

* The italics here refer to items in the dream, the inverted commas to 
items of the associations. 



THE USE OF SUBLIMINAL MATERIAL 93 

show her something she has never seen before, that is, her 
unconscious ; analysis is a " new school." 

She makes her preparations; she takes off her soft house 
shots; they are indeed nearly worn out. This tendency of 
hers to keep indoors is hard on her slippers, which are so 
comfortable. She finds she ought to put off these comfortable 
outworn habits to go outside to the road. This brings an 
association with the command to Moses, "Put off thy shoes 
from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy 
ground," and gives a religious aspect to the visit to the 
school building, that is, she must take her new effort at 
analytical understanding seriously. She puts the shoes 
behind a leg of the piano. The piano is an apt symbol of 
expression ; she prefers her sweet sounds a muffled." 

She "plays a little." The piano at her lodging is poor 
and jangling and out of tune, so that the music she can 
produce just now is not satisfying. The "finger exercise" 
represents extraversion ; the " deeper enjoyment " intro- 
version. All the harmonies of her life are muffled. The 
putting of the shoes behind the piano is a makeshift affair. 
Things are not in their right proportion; how could a piano 
leg hide a pair of shoes ? It is easier to live a half-invalided 
life than to take up a drastic new attitude. Like her slippers, 
she feels "worn out"; but this is equivalent to shipwreck, 
and that she thinks it so (subconsciously), is shown by her 
use of a blanket as covering; it is an occasion of "great 
urgency." This adds to the notion of a religious call, a sense 
of desperate personal need. The blanket has the significance 
of something comfortable taken from her bed ; she " loves 
warmth " ; her ill-health has made her spend much time in 
bed, and value her comforts. She feels now like one who has 
lost her all in storm or fire. She is indeed an invalid and 
might expect shelter, and yet she has to go out in the rain 
to see a new school building. The demand of analysis is that 
she should take up life again. She consciously acquiesces up 
to a point, but the dream shows her to be wearing the blanket, 
a svmbol of her invalid life, which she carries with her on her 
new venture. 



9i PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

The school building was at some distance beyond the flowers. 
Much had to be seen, experienced and understood before it 
was reached. The flowers were interpreted as phantasies ; the 
school is " beyond." Will the goal be reached ? That is 
always the problem ; has one enough patience and persever- 
ance to get beyond the phantasies to the real working place ? 
The dream puts the question but does not answer it. The 
school building had come up in former dreams as a place 
where she had done educational work, which had been rebuilt, 
and which she was re-visiting. It is something new on an old 
foundation. Perhaps what analysis requires of her is not 
altogether new, only a reconstruction and a fresh attitude to 
life. The new building is an improvement on the old ; that 
much is clear. She knows that we must assimilate the new by 
means of the old, for until we can do this, we cannot accept the 
new, although the old no longer serves us. Until we can 
accept the new emotionally, our thoughts carry no conviction 
and supply no power. Thus she must bring over into the 
new life the blanket that is so ill adapted to her new purposes. 
She will throw it away only when she is able to face the new 
requirements. 

Hie road outside goes through beautiful blue-bells and is 
bathed in beautiful dear light. The flowers are the pretty 
phantasies about herself and life she loves so much. They are 
" beautiful," but danger lurks in them too. These spring 
flowers suggest new springing hope. 

Broom was there, too, and the rarest kind, white broom. 
She u prefers it to gorse." It is typical that what is beautiful 
in her eyes is "rarer, more graceful and without prickles." 
This sensitive soul would like her roses without spines. Be it 
noted that broom suggests gorse in the associations. That is, 
a contrast of smooth and prickly. There is the idea of 
opposites in the associations with the colour of the wolf's coat, 
which was spotted greyish blaeh and white. The dreamer likes 
"a decided black and white." Black and white represent evil 
and good. She has always wanted to separate the one from 
the other. Indeed, has she not done this in following the 
path of sacrifice ? "What else could she have done ? This 



THE USE OF SUBLIMINAL MATERIAL 95 

clear-cut attitude has repeatedly made her turn away from 
anything that is dubious and dangerous in life and revert 
to the known and approved. It has led her to adopt the 
path of sacrifice as " white," and reject all that is unknown, all 
her natural desires for herself, as " black." This attitude has 
always led her back to the parental home, no matter how 
unhappy that return made her. She had never risked spending 
on herself, or living her own life, because who could tell 
where it might lead ? Suppose there was " a hungry wolf " 
inside one, how dangerous that might be ! We may call to 
mind here the legend of St. Francis and the wolf of Agobio. 
This hungry wolf was causing grief in the little town, robbing 
and killing. The saint went out to it, struck a bargain with 
it, tamed it, converted and led it home, turned it into a friend 
of the poor, and it became a guardian of the town. There is 
a kind of goodness that tames the animal nature by accepting 
it, and dealing with it; by uniting with it in friendship. 
This surely is the meaning of this legend. 

But for our dreamer " white " is the safe colour. It is the 
colour of etherialised saints, of brides, and little children. 
She can keep herself pure and uninitiated and infantile by an 
invariable choice of white. But it does not really succeed. 
To remain spotless means to cut oneself off from real life and 
live in phantasies. Phantasies, however, have a way of 
running off with one, of suddenly becoming dangerous, that 
is, if one begins to live in them ; and the sufferings (incidental 
to life in the real world), which one avoids, may push surrogates 
of themselves into consciousness in the form of neurotic 
symptoms, such as disability to walk, or vague abdominal 
aches and pains, which are alarming and penalising. 

3Iiss B., whenever a choice is presented, decides to live for 
her parents. She identifies herself with her suffering mother, 
and bears the burden of her father's vices as though she were 
herself his wife. In thinking thus of others, she avoids 
thinking of herself, and evades that greatest of all problems 
in life — the acceptance of personal freedom and the necessity 
of learning to use it. This, in other words, is the task of 
developing her individuality. 



96 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

Timid natures, such as hers, unconsciously refuse indi- 
vidual thinking and feeling, and shirk the problems of lore, 
which naturally arise and require enterprise and responsibility 
for their full acceptance. Miss B. thinks she is freely select- 
ing a path of self-sacrifice. Her unconscious motive is that 
she prefers to remain a child ; she cannot accept the tempta- 
tions of freedom. She would ever remain with the " white," 
which she believes to be the good. 

But the dream tells us the reason for this. Unknown 
there is an animal lurking. Out of the bed of the shelter 
of blue-bells darts a stealthy creature in the form of a 
weasel with a beautiful phosphorescent light down its back. 
It crosses from one side of the road to the other. It turns 
its back to her, as though disregarding the conventions, or 
so that it may be seen _in all aspects. It increases in size 
as it moves, and becomes a wolf, and finally returns to the 
blue-bell clump ; and behold it has now turned into a woman 
of low type. It is a kind of werewolf. 

In looking at the woman the dreamer knows she is 
looking at a representation of herself. Her clothes are plain 

' :. "v. she wore a bonnet She herself is extremely neat and 
plainly dressed. The bonnet is a sign of middle age. The 
ispzct explains these darting expressions of ill- 
feeling and malice that rise up so unexpectedly from her 
unconscious from time to time. 

The beautiful phosphorescent light has the effect of a 
magic illumination. It reminds her of the torches used by 
fairies which are symbolic of the light of the phantasies ; 
it reminds her of the inexplicable, baffling, insect light 
shown by the glow-worm and fire-fly — these humble things 
which are so wonderful and illuminating. This is the light 
that belongs to the subconscious view of things. It is 
•• different from any other light.''" It is not the light of the 
intellect, but non-rational rather than rational in character. 
It is the light of intuition. 

This analysis by no means exhausts the dream and its 
associations, but it must serve as an example of the way the 
work proceeds. It is carried on by means of a conversation 



THE USE OF SUBLIMINAL MATEEIAL 97 

between analyst and patient, which follows the patient's lead 
as closely as possible. 

What is most remarkable in the dream and analogous 
material is its character as compensatory to the conscious 
thinking. 1 This of necessity throws light on the daily 
problems. One is working in what Gilbert Murray calls 
"the uncharted region of the mind," 2 which contains all 
the germinal material that may ultimately become conscious, 
and from which art and religion emanate. 

The dream itself may in a sense be regarded as a primitive 
form of art, sometimes crude, sometimes lovely. The instance 
just given is clear and bold allegory, provocative of deep 
emotion in the dreamer and, when understood, capable of 
giving rise to a new set of values, and by the release of libido, 
providing some motive force towards a reconstruction of life. 
But though the dream is valuable as a stimulus, this is not 
all that is wanted It supplies only part of the motive for 
conduct, the other part must come from the conscious reason 
and the will. The patient in this case had been overthrown 
by her unconscious, and had taken her phantastic view of life 
for reality. Now in analysis we go to the very source of her 
overthrow and learn wisdom from it ; we now use the phantasies 
that formerly made use of her. 

The patient whose dream I have given is not unique 
in her breakdown. She represents complexes and conflicts 
to which all are subject. How to effect a compromise with 
life in its two aspects is a common human difficulty, but we 
do not all break down over it. Perhaps a temporary experience 
of neuroses would have a beneficial effect on many of us. It 
would teach us to sympathise with others, and help us to 
realise there is no precisely normal reaction, no exactly right 
path. 

Our dreamer's " high has proved too high," her " heroic for 
earth too hard." The lowering of her standard would increase 
the possibilities of life. It is better to solve all the problems 
we can here and now, rather than postpone them for a future 

1 Nicoll, "Dream Psychology," chap. vi. 

* Gilbert Murray, " Four Stages of Greek Religion." 

7 



98 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

life. In order to maintain her one-sided attitude, she has 
pushed all she takes to be evil into the unconscious and 
disguised it with phantasies; and in doing this she has 
sacrificed her own development. Her ideal of perfection has 
kept her childish. The animal has magic in it ; that is the 
strange light it carries. This power (for good or ill) is at 
present too much in the unconscious ; and her emotional life 
is limited because of its repression. Her symptoms represent 
her repressed feelings. 

Primitive man embodies the idea which I wish to convey 
in his attitude to his totem animal. His desire is to obtain 
its " mana " or virtue, its force or magic, and thereby enhance 
his own personality. His rituals, whether of participation or 
abstention, are directed to that end. The dream is on the 
level of " totemistic thinking," and expresses the notion of 
vital force under the symbol of the wolf, which later becomes 
incorporated in the woman. So Miss B.'s next step must be 
to obtain the " mana " from her animal nature. She must 
recognise that side of herself, pay attention to it, and con- 
sciously abstract from it what is useful to herself and to 
humanity. She will thus acquire forcefulness and an exten- 
sion of her personality, and bring about that co-operation 
between good and evil, spiritual and animal, white and black, 
without which no life can be lived satisfactorily. 

To act " nobly," according to a standard of virtue which 
she has not independently thought out and adopted for herself, 
is useless for one who has already broken down under such an 
attempt ; it does not work. What we want is to be as effective 
as possible on a level suitable to our capacity, and to live as 
free from neurosis or any other hampering manifestation as 
may be. The difficulty for each is to cut his coat according 
to his cloth, to find out what suits his special nature, to make 
a harmonious compromise. It does not do to be a saint or 
martyr in the conscious, and a werewolf in the unconscious. 
Such an attitude is bound sooner or later to be no longer 
supportable. The more sensitive and valuable the character, 
the graver the conflict. 

Dreams have been denied a moral meaning ; I cannot but 



THE USE OF SUBLIMINAL MATERIAL 99 

think this is an error. In no department of human activity 
can an ethical bearing be excluded. The moral meaning is 
not, however, to be found in the dream alone. It would be 
dangerous to take a dream too literally or concretely ; but it 
supplies the view missing to consciousness — missing because 
in some way painful to consciousness. The meaning is to be 
found only through the work of the conscious upon the 
unconscious. 

I cannot agree with Miss Bradby's view that the un- 
conscious is educable. 1 On the contrary, it is always the 
primordial material of instincts and intuitions of ideas (arche- 
types), capable of endless new combinations, and charged with 
libido. The unconscious has the appearance of being educable 
because it reflects progress, or the reverse, in consciousness. 
Analysis by revealing the meaning of the symbols in the dream 
provides a view which is compensatory to the conscious one. 
This is enlightening, and when assimilated brings about a 
change in consciousness which leads to an improved situation. 
This improvement is in turn reflected in subsequent dreams 
which represent the new psychological state. The real work 
is done in consciousness, and is the effect of effort directed to 
a new understanding of life through assimilation of the un- 
conscious. Intuition is an unconscious process. It gives a 
kind of uncanny wisdom to the dream ; but its tricky character 
makes it an unsafe guide by itself. Nevertheless, intuition 
will often find a way where reason fails, but we must bring 
the weight of judgment to bear upon it. Freud says : 
"Nothing can be brought to an end in the unconscious ; 
nothing can cease or be forgotten." 2 For such reasons the 
conflicts must be worked out in the conscious. 

The dream just analysed was chosen on ' account of its 
general character. A trained analyst will find other meanings 
than those given ; the patient herself as time went on found 
other important meanings and associations. It has been said 
that the whole of a life might be revealed from one dream 

1 " Psycho-analysis and its Place in Life," p. 36. Bradby. Oxford Medical 
Publication, 1919. 

2 " Dream Interpretation." Freud. Page 456. 



100 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

if the associations were followed sufficiently freely and far ; 
but no dream can be exhaustively analysed, especially in 
public. 

Before I myself had analysed dreams and become familiar 
with some aspects of the subconscious mind, I found examples 
of dream analysis very unconvincing, and I cannot hope that 
my own attempt will prove less so. One cannot recapture all 
the delicate threads of the conversation, and portray the 
subtle reactions that made it possible to bring the material 
above the threshold of consciousness; and when once the 
material is in consciousness and is so obvious, it seems as if it 
must have been there all the time. The dream gives a 
concrete picture of an incident that at first sight may not be 
interesting even to the dreamer. It seems meaningless till 
the free associations show it to have a symbolical meaning. 
The emotions attached to it belong to the psychological 
problems which also occupy the dreamer in the day, and the 
symbols selected are singularly apt, and often witty. An 
example of a witty dream, is the following. It ran : 
"Some people travel by boat, some by rail, but I always 
travel by Virginia creeper." We can all make a guess 
at the meaning of this dream, and in so doing we shall 
all interpret it differently. "What it actually meant to the 
dreamer can only be known when the free associations are 
forthcoming. 

The next instance of phantasy production is one which 
credulous people might be inclined to attribute to appearance 
of a spirit, but which to a student of analytical psychology has 
quite another interpretation. 

A certain Mrs. C. had a hypnagogic vision. It was the 
head of a young woman with a peculiar and striking face. 
The keynote of the expression was sad. The face appeared 
on a grey misty background. Mrs. C. woke from this vision 
with a feeling of sorrow. On going to sleep again she saw the 
same head in a dream. This time it was a dead face. As the 
dreamer gazed at it, the eyes opened and looked levelly forward. 
Mrs. C. woke up weeping, and the memory of the hypnagogic 
vision and the dream caused her acute distress when she recalled 



THE USE OF SUBLIMINAL 3IATEEIAL 101 

it during the following day. Unknown to Airs. C, then or since, 
the woman whom she recognised in the dream had committed 
snicide a few days previously in tragic circumstances, and her 
body was still unburied. 3Irs. C. had seen her only three 
times, then not to speak to and only for a moment. She had 
consciously thought her ill and sad-looking, and her striking 
appearance had roused a passing curiosity. One association 
with the dead face in the dream was of a thorn-crowned head 
of Christ painted or printed on linen, known as St. Veronica's 
handkerchief, in which the eyes appear to open as the gazer 
approaches the picture. Another association was of a so-called 
mystical painting, in which a cross appeared, which it was 
claimed had never been put there by the painter. Thus the 
head in the dream represented sorrow, despair and death, and 
also sacrifice and crucifixion. 

All these emotions belonged to the immediate life problem 
of the dreamer, and her unconscious mind with remarkable 
sureness had selected, out of hundreds of indifferent faces seen 
in the previous few days, just the very one that poignantly 
symbolised her own particular sufferings. This appearance of 
the dead in the dream is a coincidence that we must necessarily 
come across when we observe unconscious phenomena, just as 
we find it in any group of conscious phenomena. It is obvious 
that the dream must be attributed to a reminiscence of the 
dreamer's, rather than to any supposed action of the dead 
person. "What analysis adds to the view of its subjective origin 
is that it has a meaning discoverable by the dreamer, as 
representative of certain unconscious thoughts or wishes. 

Those who have read reports of seances are often struck with 
the frequent banalities of the so-called controls. They serve 
to strengthen the supposition that the phenomena in question 
are emanations from the unconscious mind of the medium, and 
of the collective unconscious of the sitters through the medium. 
The material of dreams is often quite as trivial, but we 
recognise that it has no concrete value — only a symbolical 
one. In analysis the conscious mind is brought to bear upon 
it critically. This critical estimation is generally lacking in 
the evaluation of material produced at seances. 



102 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

Dining analysis the work done on the unconscious by the 
conscious mind continues to force fresh material above the 
threshold. Examples may be given which treat of the relation 
between the analyst and the analysed person. Incidentally 
they show how humorous the unconscious is. E.g. a lady 
expressed feelings of parsimony in the following way : She 
dreamed that she was being fitted by a Bond Street tailor for 
a coat and skirt : she regretted she had not bought it before 
the tailor had removed to this expensive address, as he had 
made them just as well at half the cost when he lived at 
Snrbiton. This actually refers to the recent removal of the 
physician from a suburb into the area of consulting practice. 
She could have paid smaller fees if she had consulted him 
before his removal. 

Another patient ended a spell of analysis with a wish to 
establish friendly relations with the doctor. This did not 
seem possible. She dreamed that she was on an island. A 
beautiful dolphin visits her on Government business. As lie 
swims away she feels very sad, and notices that his tail is 
studded with yellow discs. They are of shining metal, and 
strengthen the tail as a band of metal strengthens the blade of 
an oar. The analysis showed the metal discs to represent 
golden guineas, symbolic of the cash nexus which she now feels 
to be the sole bond between her and the doctor, and which she 
tries to rejoice over, on the ground of cash being necessary to 
his well-being. 

The analyst often turns up in his patient's dream under any 
guise that fits the situation of the moment. In a single day 
the dreams of various patients might depict him as : (1) a 
policeman, representing a guardian of law or a helper ; (2) a 
siren, one who draws into danger ; (3) a ship's stoker, one who 
attends to the invisible sources of energy ; (4) a gardener, one 
who cultivates growing thoughts and feelings, or who prunes 
bushes,, and nurtures seeds ; (5) a piece of jewellery, which may 
be either precious or a sham ; (6) the Kaiser, one who makes 
bombastic assertions ; (7) a bull with a swollen head who 
obstructs the only gap in the hedge. Every symbol would 
have its special meaning for the moment, and would be 



THE USE OF SUBLIMINAL MATEEIAL 103 

changed in the course of analysis as rapidly as the mental 
attitude changes. Though in each case the analyst is meant 
objectively by these characters, they have a subjective mean- 
ing as well, standing for some attitude or feeling in the 
dreamer which is projected on to the analyst. 

The analysed person appears to himself under innumerable 
guises. His ambition may be symbolised by Alexander, his 
power by Jove, his patience by Job, his piety or sexuality by 
monk or nun, his self-depreciation by a cringing dog, his 
temper by Xantippe, his greed by a ravening wolf, his childish- 
ness and greed by a sucking pig, and so forth. The problems 
with which the dream is concerned are curiously veiled, not 
for purposes of concealment merely, but because the sub- 
conscious naturally thinks in terms different from the conscious, 
and is trying to solve problems by seeking analogies. The 
dream is a means of expression. It is, according to Jung, 
"the subliminal picture of the psychological condition of 
the individual in his waking state." It is also a fact that 
the subconscious view of a problem is often different from the 
conscious one. Just as the day-dream offers a relief from the 
hard facts of reality, so the night-dream refreshes us with 
the opposite point of view, or points out our error or reassures 
us in a picture. The dream is a source of wisdom, as we all 
unconsciously admit when we leave some knotty problem over- 
night with the words, " let us sleep upon it." 

Sometimes we find that the psychological problems are 
brought up under a recurring dream character. This personifi- 
cation persists until the problems connected with it disappear 
— till " the ghost is laid," in fact, not by magic but by develop- 
ment, by assimilating into consciousness the repressed elements 
which the dream-character in question represents. Let me 
illustrate. Miss X., a kind-hearted woman of forty, with the 
benevolent feelings of a social worker, was generous-minded 
and affectionate, but she was also slangy and aggressive, and 
unconsciously inconsiderate of the feelings of persons with a 
different outlook on life. In some respects she had the 
psychology of an open-hearted public schoolboy of sixteen 
who is well-intentioned, but careless and regardless of the 



104 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

feelings of others. In her dreams the following character 
appears again and again under slightly different guises ; each 
guise embodying some special point a propos of the occasion of 
the dream. The character is a youth — like a Greek youth, and 
rather like the Faun of Praxiteles. He is more like a natural 
and kindly animal than a man. He might be mentally or 
morally defective, but is quite amiable and gay. He has a 
romantic appreciation of feminine charm. He appears under 
the following circumstances : — 

(1) A policeman comes to arrest him good-temperedly and 
put him where he can do no harm. 

(2) He had been sent up to Cambridge, but only wasted 
his time. Now he is going to haYe another try. 

(3) 3Iiss X.'s father helps her to capture him when he "runs 
amok " in the house and is a danger. Once caught, he can be 
" put on his honour." 

(•±) He comes home as a semi-prodigal and joins family 
prayers, but is allowed to look at a picture book. 

(5) Returned from the hunt, he sticks his legs up on an 
inn table, whereupon the company, shocked at his manners, 
proceed to hunt him. 

(6) He wakes up and is terribly frightened to find himself 
cdon-e. 

{1) As " Sir Pompey Briseas " — Breezy Ass — he is required 
to enter into an estate and manage a property. He hates 
haying to do it. 

This character reappeared until the unconscious trends 
symbolised were fully acknowledged, and the attitude aban- 
doned — at least in intention, for it takes time to work the 
change. Such an unconscious attitude creates many diffi- 
culties in life, puzzling the patient, who is apt to think these 
difficulties are owing to faults of others. Her conduct is 
influenced, none the less that the irresponsible side is under 
repression, and in this case concealed by enthusiastic interests 
in life. Here I may add that the sex of a dream personifica- 
tion matters little — male may stand for female and vice versa. 
The symbol most appropriate will be selected, regardless of 
sex, oi because of it, as the case may be. This should not 



THE USE OF SUBLIMINAL MATERIAL 105 

surprise us, because every normal human being contains 
elements of both sexes, not only biologically, but also psycho- 
logically. 

The next example is a cryptic word which occurred in a 
dream, in the making of which a great condensation of dream 
ideas has taken place. Here I must again remind you that 
the remembered dream is the manifest content only. As 
Freud says, " The first thing that becomes clear to the 
investigator in the comparison of the dream content with 
the dream thoughts is that a tremendous work of condensa- 
tion has taken place. The dream is reserved, paltry, and 
laconic, when compared with the range and copiousness of the 
dream thoughts." l I do not propose to relate the dream, but 
will merely give the word and the associations attached to it, 
supplied by the dreamer, who was "Welsh, and a speaker of 
Welsh. She saw on a doorplate the word : " Anwlwimdwy." 

The immediate associations were as follows : 

Anwl — was a Welsh word meaning " dear." 

Dwy — means "two," and is the feminine form of the 
numeral adjective. 

Wy — (1) a common ending for names of places ; it means 
a current of water. 

(2) the last syllable in her mother's name : 

(3) the first syllable in her sister's name : 

(4) a word meaning " egg." 

Lwm = " lum," part of the names of two people of whom 
she thought, giving associations. 

Wlwin = cwlwin = " knot." 

jSTwl = niwl = "fog." 

Mdwy = modrwy = " wedding ring." 
English words gave the following associations : 

Anwl = annul, null and void. 

Wmdwy — Humpty Dumpty, the Liberal Party, Anti- 
suffrage. 

Lum = Lump. 

Following these items back to early reminiscences, she 
recollects that at the age of nine she associated with three 

1 " Dream Interpretation." 



106 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

children whose names all began with W, and now noticed 
that in Anwl, Wm, Dwy, there are three W's, and Wy 
suggests the name of two of them, but the third has no 
letter beyond the W. Every one of the foregoing associa- 
tions led to important dream thoughts. Anwhcimrfimj, like 
a word-salad, is merely the form that conceals the latent 
content. It is a symbol, embodying psychological problems, 
a language of signs which has the significance of shorthand. 
Analysis finds the associations, showing subtle connections 
between the form and its contents ; these connections repre- 
sent the dream thoughts. 

Another short dream showing similar mechanisms occurred 
to a middle-aged man, who was thinking of proposing to 
a lady who lived in Highgate. He was feeling dashed by 
recent experiences, and was inclined to give up his quest. 
As he woke one morning he caught this fleeting dream : 
"Archie Heme! Hempsted." The associations with Archie were: 
an ingenuous youth; the railway arch: Archway Tavern; 
Highgate Archway; the way to Highgate — this was the way 
to the lady of course ! Heme! — Himmel = Heaven. "What 
is the German for saddle (he continued in associating), and 
for a camel's hump, which is not a defect, but is useful to ride 
on ? " Hempsted was a combination of Hampstead and Hemel 
Hempsted — two places associated in the dreamer's mind with 
successfully wedded couples who are free and natural people. 
His mixed attitude to this problem of marriage, needing such 
courage on the part of our timid dreamer, is well shown in 
the camel's hump — " having the hump." The question about 
the German for saddle means : won't he be saddled ? but 
will it not be Himmel ? etc., etc. I need not elaborate 
further. 

"When dreams and phantasies fail, as they occasionally do 
in analysis, there is either conscious material to work upon, 
or other subconscious products, such as verses, drawings, 
paintings, or models. All is grist that comes to the analytical 
mill. A certain patient brings me a kind of shorthand draw- 
ings, which analyse out very usefully. They are extremely 
abstract - looking forms, sometimes mere lines or curves, 



THE USE OF SUBLIMINAL MATERIAL 107 

symbolising repressed feelings ; they are not unlike some 
scribblings I have seen in Miss Johnson's accounts of Mrs. 
Holland's scripts. 

One comes to believe that nearly everybody is capable of 
some form of primitive art, and that it, like the facade of the 
dream, is a fruit of the symbolic function of the unconscious 
mind. Some patients bring models done in plasticine. These 
are executed as unconsciously as possible ; others bring verses, 
or automatic script. These things are appraised analytically, 
not from the artistic standpoint, though occasionally evidences 
of -real art appear in a latent or nascent state. 

Any effort to force an interpretation of subliminal material 
falls flat. The intelligent patient will have none of it. "When 
the material is rightly handled, the more obvious and simple 
truths go home at once, for the reason, as Jung says, that 
the analyst " has a confederate in the patient's unconscious." 
The interpretation of the symbols wakens the most vivid 
interest at once, and carries conviction. It is this vivid 
interest that helps the patient over many difficult places 
in analysis. Analytical work follows laws and demands a 
technique. The training which analysis gives in the obser- 
vation of unconscious phenomena greatly deepens the indi- 
vidual's rapport with his own unconscious and so brings his 
other side into closer union with his consciousness. The 
Swiss school advises that after an analysis, the patient should 
remain in touch with his unconscious, that is, by paying 
attention to it and carrying on his own analysis to the best 
of his ability. " The real end of analysis is reached when the 
patient has attained adequate knowledge of the methods by 
which he can remain in such contact, and apply its results 
to his life." * The problem is how to adapt oneself to the 
necessity that life lays on one. This can only be done satis- 
factorily by paying sufficient attention to the inner demands 
as well as to those of the external world. It is natural to 
make efforts to overcome the obstacles in life to a certain 
degree. When the obstacles are too great, and the man gives 
up trying to overcome them, the energy that should have 
1 " Analytical Psychology," p. 171. 



108 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

been thus used turns instead to producing emotional dis- 
turbances, physical and mental. It is imperative that a 
solution for the patient's conflicts should be found, and it 
should be found by the patient himself. For the aim of 
analysis is to leave him morally responsible. It helps him 
to discover where his libido flows most freely, and to find 
the path in life where he can be most truly at one with 
himself. When he has learnt to find the latent values in 
himself, he should be more tolerant and harmonious in his 
relations with other people and more satisfied in himself. It 
is with this important aim of helping to unify the personality 
that we make analytical use of subliminal material. 



XI 

THE CENSOR AND UNCONSCIOUS SYMBOLISM 
IX DEEAMS 1 

The importance of dream and phantasy can scarcely be over- 
estimated. They spring from the basic fonndations of life, 
and unfold to us the origin of thoughts, feelings and intuitions. 
The unconscious, which is the dream-originating mind, is in 
ceaseless activity, moving beneath and around consciousness 
which it is perpetually influencing. It sends signals of various 
sorts to it. The dream is one sort of signal, the neurotic 
symptom is another. Others are unreasoning fear, prejudice, 
trivial mannerisms, ready wit, slips of the tongue, intuitions, 
as well as the phenomena of neurosis, delirium, and madness. 

It is clear that what we know of ourselves leaves very 
much unexplained, and we are forced to the conclusion that 
:; self-consciousness does not exhaust the ego." 2 We might 
almost conceive of the ego as surrounded by the personal 
unconscious, which is itself suspended or imbedded in the 
universal unconscious. There is one way in which we have 
access to any part of this mental territory, and that is via the 
dream and phantasy. 

Eren a superficial examination of the dream shows it to be 
a dramatisation of which the individual dreamer is the author. 
We can no longer retain the idea that the dream is sent by 
an external divine power, or share the primitive's notion that 
a spirit has entered the dreamer, or that he has gone out of 
his body in spirit-form to hunt or fight with another being. 

In the dream the ego is split into several characters, which 
occupy the stage. The conversations carried on have the 

1 Lecture delivered before the Quest Society, January, 1919. 
: Du PreL " Philosophy of Mysticism," vol. ii.. p. 13. 
109 



110 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

significance of monologues in which the conflicting ideas are 
represented. For example, Dr. Johnson had a dream in which 
he was in argument with another man. He came off badly in 
the argument which his friend sustained with wit and reason. 
When the good doctor awoke he was puzzled as to why the 
word of wisdom had not been with him. Here we can easily 
see that both arguments in the dream were sustained by Dr. 
Johnson. The reason why the conscious " I " of the dream came 
off second best we cannot now fathom, because the explanation 
belongs to the psychological situation of the dreamer, a 
matter to which we shall refer later. 

An intensive study of the dream seems to reveal a thread 
on which the successive epochs of mental development are 
strung. This should not surprise us, for we have looked too 
long for a unifying principle in the conscious life only. One 
third of our lives is spent in sleep, a state in which man is 
obviously plunged into a different sort of consciousness from 
that of his waking life. As Du Prel says, u sleep and waking 
are of equal importance for the solution of the human enigma." 
In sleep we borrow from consciousness much of the material 
for our dream, just as in waking life we unceasingly borrow 
from the unconscious, ideas which present and insert them- 
selves in the mental stream. The idea may be a right or a 
wrong one for the purpose in hand. A good rapport with the 
unconscious predisposes to the selection of the right idea. 
Common sense might be defined as a sense that is common 
to both sides of the mind ; it implies a rapid presentation of 
suitable ideas on the part of the subconscious, and a right 
selection of ideas on the part of the consciousness. Such equal 
working of the two sides of the mind, the creative and the 
critical, the emotional and the rational, constitutes mental 
harmony. The appearance of duality in the mind lies in the 
fact of a threshold of consciousness. Although there is no 
real duality, there is a qualitative difference in the mental 
functioning above or below the threshold. Just as we explain 
man biologically by the present and the past, so we can 
explain him psychically. Man as a species is now performing 
automatically and involuntarily bodily processes that occupied 



UNCONSCIOUS SYMBOLISM IN DREAMS 111 

the total life energy of former species in his own line of 
descent. He is no longer engrossed in the activity of digestion, 
and only when ill is he reminded of his organs. The " con- 
sciousness " of the amoeba, like the consciousness of the early 
primitive, becomes subconscious in civilised man. The shifting 
forward of the threshold of consciousness approximates to the 
growth of a new sense. The threshold, as we know it, may be 
said to have its origin at that epoch of evolution when a 
distinction is realised between what is objective and what is 
subjective. This progress in human thought is the result of 
natural evolutionary strife. Man is required to adapt himself 
both to the inner (subjective) and to the outer (objective) 
world. The battle, so to speak, takes place at the threshold 
of consciousness ; this is where man lost his Eden, when he 
had already very far advanced beyond the time when " mind 
was mud " as Meredith puts it. 1 

Freud does not speak of the threshold of consciousness, 
but of a " preconscious " area between the conscious and 
unconscious. In this area he has postulated a Censor of 
Eesistance. He says that two psychic streams are represented 
in the dream. First, there is the wish tendency always 
striving for the expression of some repressed desire ; and 
secondly, there is the censor always striving to prevent this 
tendency from gaining expression. 

These two psychic streams are always in opposition to one 
another. The unconscious wish 13 too primitive in character 
to be acceptable to consciousness, so that the censoring of the 
wish produces the distortion in the dream. The censor as a 
concept embodies all the repressive forces acting on behalf of 
the civilised personality. In waking life the censor is in 
control, except in moments of mental aberration or relative 
dissociation. 

The dream, according to Freud, is " the disguised fulfilment 
of a suppressed wish." 2 It is, he says, in every instance a 
wish realisation, " because it is the product of the unconscious 
mind which knows no other aim, and which has no other 

1 " Woods of Westermain." 

■ " Dream Interpretation," p. 136. 



112 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

forces at its disposal but wish feelings." x The wish referred to 
is not necessarily shown in the manifest content, that is, the 
remembered dream. It is indeed very rarely seen there except 
in children's dreams. 

Du Prel, writing before the date at which Freud published 
his " Dream Interpretation," said, " The content of our dreams 
is difficult to catch, and more difficult still is it to understand 
this content, since the dream is a cluster of intimate problems. 
This intricacy explains the two extreme modes of regarding 
the dream — that of the old philosophers and that of the 
modern dream-contemner. The one who thought that 
highly important phenomena are to be discovered in dreams, 
if only in fragmentary form, is disposed to the superlative 
view by the very difficulty of understanding them. Thus the 
ancient Greeks. Others, again, take the disorder of the pre- 
sentment for mere presentation of disorder, and deny to the 
dream any scientific significance whatever. Thus the moderns. 
Extreme opinions are never true. We have to hit the mean 
. . . between over-estimation and under- estimation." 2 

That writing about dream and phantasy has a sort of vogue 
to-day, we see from the great interest aroused by such books 
as A. E.'s " Candle of Vision," and Algernon Blackwood's 
phantastic novels. Productions of this sort may be over- 
estimated. Dreams arise involuntarily in all sorts of people. 
Quite illiterate persons, and even mentally deranged people 
at times produce dreams of exquisite beauty. The unconscious 
mind is the artist who produces the dream. The afore- 
mentioned writers differ from ordinary dreamers in possessing 
the ability to write their dreams in good literary form. 
What we do with our dreams expresses our personal work. 
The dreamer who can learn to detach himself from his day- 
dreams and his night-dreams, so as to abstract thoughts and 
ideas from them, or who can turn his gift to creative purposes, 
has acquired in this way a new range of perception and new 
faculties. It is through the possession of a marked ability 

1 " Dream Interpretation," p. US. 

1 " Philosophy of Mysticism." Du Prel. Vol. i., p. 52. Translated by 
C. C. Massey. 



UNCONSCIOUS SYMBOLISM IN DREAMS 113 

of this kind that the poet or man of genius is distinguished 
from the average dreamer. There is a special temptation to 
give a false value to the dream at a time like the present, 
because dreaming or phantasy-making offers a relief from the 
painful realities of a world in disintegration. Many persons 
are killing time, " and incidentally killing eternity," by 
dreaming of what they will do when we return to the delights 
of pre-war days — days that can never come back to us save 
in anodyne dreams. 

A short analysis of a dream follows which will serve to 
illustrate points as they arise. The remembered dream is but 
a fragment of the whole. In this case the manifest content 
is very brief. What we discover by analysis is not the lost 
dream, but the thoughts of the dream. 

A young woman woke with the memory of the following 
dream sentence : " Folloiu the grave-diggers," and at the same time 
she saw a piece of ground, with three marks something like foot- 
prints upon it. 

The associations which follow were entirely supplied by 
the dreamer, as they arose in consciousness. The facts were 
originally quite unknown to the analyst, and are not, as critics 
so often believe, the result of suggestion. 

The dreamer had the impression that the three footprints 
indicated progress to something which lay beyond, at least 
that was the emotion evoked when she looked at them. They 
were square and cut in the ground, and suggested half-dug 
graves. 

The number three brought up memories of three funerals. 
Tlie first was that of the head mistress of her early school and 
recalled the unintelligent way in which the dreamer had been 
taught, the bad tone of the school, and the bullying of the 
tiny children that went on. She was a very shy and awkward 
child and suffered because she was badly dressed ; she seemed 
to have nothing in common with her little companions and 
could not join in their games. She attributed her solitariness 
to her home life, for her mother (who later on went out of 
her mind) was very untidy and peculiar, so that the child's 
life was full of care and anxietv. She had to be nurse and 



114 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

helper to her mother at an age when most children are playing 
with dolls. As she was very sensitive., she was sadly de- 
preciated in her own estimation by all these things. 

Tlie second funeral was an annt's. It took place in Borne. 
She spoke of her uncle's grief and her wish to comfort him. 
This she dared not do, because she was very conscious of the 
fact that she was not in mourning, although she felt she could 
haTe said much more comforting things than the other 
relatives who offered consolation. 

The funeral brought up memories of a former visit to 
Eome, and a stay with a rich aunt., with whom she had 
nothing in common. At the time of her visit she was going 
through a phase of religious conviction., with rigid observances. 
This irritated the aunt, who was agnostic. Moreover, she was 
badly dressed and awkward, whereas her aunt was fashionable. 
She thought also of the relations between this aunt, and the 
one whose funeral was under discussion : the latter was very 
boui'geoise. and the two were mutually antagonistic. The 
dreamer hated convention, but was always feeling uncomfort- 
able because of her external lack oi it. 

Lastly, she thought of the third funeral, which for her was 
the most important of the three — that of her mother. The 
mother's death could only be regarded as a relief, and yet it 
called up much sadness. She thought of her father's grief, and 
of her own unbecoming mourning. She '"'hated black." At 
that time her feeling about death was that it was a " retribu- 
tion."' Indeed, punishment seemed the keynote of the whole 
ceremony. She spoke of all the things of which her mother's 
illness had robbed her. She feared to marry; she even 
feared to make an intimate friend lest she should become 
a burden to others as her mother had become to her. Even 
during her holidays she had never had pleasure like other 
girls, on account of perpetual nursing and housekeeping. 
She had never been to a dance. When she was in society she 
did not know how to be frivolous or merrv like other voting 
women, and she was always under a sense of guilt. 

A notable feature in this dream is the recurrence of 
similar emotions at each funeral — one may call it an identity 



UNCONSCIOUS SYMBOLISM IN DKEAMS 115 

of emotion ; in each case she revives the memories of poignant 
sorrows of early childhood and youth. They are all associated 
with fears about her mother's mental state. A sense of in- 
feriority is always present on account of her disorderly home, 
her poor education, and because she was badly dressed, and 
awkward in society, and unable to express her feelings with 
the ease of most people. 

In all these ways she identifies her fate with her mother's, 
and fear of insanity is at the back of her mind. 

Now as regards the actual situation : this lady is in many 
ways well equipped. She is highly educated, and trust- 
worthy ; she occupies a responsible position, and is eligible for 
a better one. She has a thoroughly reliable character, but 
she keeps a childish attitude to life in her sense of inferiority 
and self-distrust. This debars her from a happy life. As the 
result of her mental idiosyncrasies, she is easily wounded by 
her friends — life seems all retribution. Her own feeling is 
projected on to the world. 

The dream, when analysed, tells her that she is uncon- 
sciously tied to her mother's fate because she has identified 
herself with her mother. So long as this mental attitude 
persists, she will inevitably and logically adopt a suffering 
role in life, because she experiences the emotions belonging 
to her mother's fate, not to her own. Her mentality exposes 
her to martyrdom, and invites suffering. 

The associations connected with the dream-sentence, 
" Follow the grave-diggers," ran somewhat as follows : Grave- 
diggers are those who in burying the dead do a public 
service. They do not feel their work personally — that is, 
with any sense of personal loss — and when it is done they go 
back to ordinary homes and share the same kind of rest and 
comfort as other workers. The dreamer feels she, too, must 
get rid of her symbolical corpses, these dismal emotions that 
she drags about with her. For it is these persistent emotions 
which depreciate her and make her unable to share the common 
joys and sorrows of life. 

A treble emphasis is put on the necessity to make stepping 
stones of her " dead self " by the three half-dug graves. It 



116 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

means a sacrifice of the childish personality, which is the 
cause of the neurotic attitude in life, and which prevents her 
from adjusting herself in a healthy way to her environment. 
The grave for the childish personality has been half dug 
several times. 

It is highly probable that the emotional attitude engendered 
by clinging morbidly to the past actually predisposes to 
mental disease. The person who is over anxious about 
insanity invites the very fate he fears. Probably in the 
course of time this factor of an unconscious bondage to the 
hereditary fate will be seen to have a greater bearing than 
even the physical inheritance in determining the outbreak of 
a psychosis. 

One may ask, " What good can the analysis of such a dream 
do?" It can do much good. It makes things conscious 
that have been unconscious and yet dynamically active. It 
brings about a better understanding of the dreamer's difficulties. 
In this particular case, instead of being made to feel inferior 
by others, the dreamer was making herself miserable and inferior 
by her subjective view of life. She was projecting what was 
missing in herself and her own attitude on to others and on to 
her environment. The dream indicates a new direction. It 
is one of those dreams which is like a prophecy, in the sense 
of an inspired utterance, not a forecast of the future. It was 
just in this sense that certain of the Delphic Oracles were 
uttered. The ordinances were cryptic in character. Inspired 
by the subconscious, they were also elaborately worked at by 
a priesthood in possession of a well-organised intelligence 
department. When given to an intelligent inquirer anxious 
about the next thing, they were productive of "furious 
thinking " ; since they were open to various interpretations, 
every possibility had to be taken into consideration. The 
general effect of the oracular saying was to get the best 
possible wisdom out of the votary. It was the business of 
the oracle to be wise in itself. 

The method of dream analysis, as my example shows, 
consists in taking every part of the manifest dream- content 
and examining it separately. We try to find how it has been 



UNCONSCIOUS SYMBOLISM IN DREAMS 117 

formed, what events and impressions of the day have entered 
into its composition. We instruct the patient to speak of 
everything that comes into the mind, following a process of 
free-association of ideas. This brings out a multitude of 
thoughts which are connected with the dream, in fact every- 
thing that passes in the analytical hour bears upon the dream. 
There is nothing unimportant or insignificant in the dream or 
in the thoughts that are contained in the dream. The dream 
is a "momentous psychic act" 1 (Freud). Every symbol has 
a meaning and one or more determinants. The symbols are 
not related to one another directly, but indirectly through 
the dream thoughts which are only shown to be relevant 
during the analysis. The dreamer himself may be repre- 
sented by similarity or identification with a person in 
the dream. There are certain limitations in the dream. 
Negatives are generally, but not always, indicated by failure 
to accomplish, such as, " I cannot move " ; and by obstacles 
which cannot be overcome. Criticism is generally expressed 
indirectly by presenting situations which are absurd, or equi- 
vocal in character. Hence in place of judgments alternatives 
are put, or a composite symbol condenses into one form several 
situations or tendencies. Judgment is left to consciousness. 

The emotional values of the symbols and situations depend 
much more on the dream thoughts and the dream identifica- 
tions than on the manifest content. All the material intro- 
duced into the dream is psychologically significant. 

It is notable that there is no sense of proportion or 
sequence between the dream experience and the dream 
emotions. This displacement is necessitated by the choice of 
material, and the dream's " regard for presentability." Freud 
points out that the unconscious can only represent abstract 
thought by a recasting of the ideas into figurative language, 2 
in which cross references and identities play an important 
part, bringing about a condensation of many thoughts into 
one symbol, and great alterations in psychic intensities. One 
would suppose that in this factor we had reason enough for 

1 " Dream Interpretation," p. 422, 
* Ibid., p. 314. 



118 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

the symbolism in dreams ; but this is not Freud's view, for lie 
expressly says that " he regards the disfigurement of the 
dream owing to the act of the Censor of Resistance as the 
essence of his dream theory."'" The censor is able to force 
the wish system to disguise itself. This disguising process 
in his view forces symbolism on the dream, and the choice 
of the symbols is the result of some necessity to form thought 
connections in particular directions. 1 Memories and phan- 
tasies dating from childhood are very generally introduced. 
These memories may not appear in the manifest content, but 
they are at once aroused by looking for ideas associated with it. 
and are often only discovered by allusion. Freud holds that the 
sexual factor is always present in dreams, and " as a motive 
for the exercise of the censor receives striking prominence." 2 
In sleep the censor is in a measure overpowered. Should the 
dream wish come through in an extremely crude form it is 
because the censor is completely hoodwinked. In this con- 
nection Freud gives what seems to be a Yery specious bit of 
reasoning when he says that sometimes the dream wish reaches 
such a depth of depravity {cj/. a death- wish towards the father) 
that it completely escapes the censor and is transferred to the 
dream without alteration, because we could never have dreamed 
of anything so wicked, therefore the censor is not prepared for 
this monstrosity, ''just as the legislation of Solon was incapable 
of establishing a punishment for parricide. 3 

The dream censor is a necessary postulate of Freud's Yiew 
of the unconscious, which, according to him, " knows no other 
aim than the fulfilment of wishes," and exhibits only primitive 
tendencies. That this is an important aspect of the un- 
conscious cannot be denied. But there is another view of un- 
conscious processes which, as we shall see, seems to make the 
censor superfluous. 

The censor has nevertheless been an extremely useful 
concept, and one that should not be undervalued. The word 
itself is a good instance of symbolism, and has been of great 
service in the formulation of the Freudian theories. It served 

1 •• Dream Interpretation," chap. iv. s Ibid., p. 157. 

5 Ibid., p. 225. 



UNCONSCIOUS SYMBOLISM IN DEEAMS 119 

as a bridge to more discriminated ideas, and we may be quite 
sure that Freud's lasting fame will not rest either on the 
retention or overthrow of his censor. His discovery of a 
scientific method of dream interpretation is sufficient to put 
him among the Immortals. 

The adherents of the Swiss school of analytical psychology 
interpret dreams both objectively and subjectively. When 
the dream symbols represent real objects of love or hate or 
interest in the outer world and are so understood, and so 
referred to in the associations of the dreamer, we call the 
interpretation objective, a term akin to the " material category " 
of Silberer. 1 This kind of analysis dissects the dream into its 
memory elements, and relates them to matters of fact. This 
is causal interpretation. 

Subjective interpretation relates the dream elements to 
the feelings of the dreamer. In this all the roles played by 
the people or things in the dream are regarded as expressions 
of tendencies or attitudes or views of the dreamer. This 
approximates to Silberer's "functional symbolism." Sub- 
jective interpretation is extremely important from the teleo- 
logical standpoint, for it points to the solution of the 
individual problem, the dream as a rule constellates round 
the most difficult and painful problem of the moment. Both 
kinds of interpretation are valid. The one is analytic, and 
leads down into the depths of the impulsive life. The other 
is synthetic, and brings back from the depths the raw materials 
for the purposes of constructive life. 

This twofold interpretation fits into the general scheme of 
life because adaptation is itself twofold, viz. to the inner 
subjective world of psychic reality, and to the outer objective 
world of material reality. 

Jung's view of the unconscious does not require the 
retention of the censor. In his idea all psychic phenomena, 
including the dream and the neurosis, are manifestations of 
psychic energy. This energy " is subjectively and psycho- 
logically conceived as desire or 'libido,' or vital energy in 

1 " Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism." Silberer- Moffat, Yard 
& Co. 



120 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

general." While " tlie dream, for Freud, is in its essence a 
veil for repressed desires which are in conflict with the ideals 
of the personality," * for Jung it is " in the first instance the 
subliminal picture of the psychological waking state of the 
individual." 2 Instead of being only the fulfilment of a 
disguised wish, it is also a means of expression of things 
necessary to be understood or considered. The dream pictures 
individually haye a concrete value, " they do not intentionally 
conceal ; they teach and help to reveal." For the Swiss School, 
the meaning of the dream symbols is individual and manifold. 
There are no symbols with absolutely fixed meanings, 3 though 
there are many * typical " ones, which appear everywhere. 
These form the constantly occurring images and motives of 
mythology. They are indigenous, and present in the legends 
as well as in the rites of primitive people all the world over. 

Dr. Ernest Jones 4 says : " A given symbol may have two, 
or occasionally even more meanings ; for instance, in dreams 
a room may symbolise either a woman or a womb. In that 
case the interpretation will depend on the context, the 
associations and other material available." This admission 
should open the way to more liberal views ; but for the 
Freudian, all the symbols seem to work out on one basis. 

As an example of a symbol with a fixed meaning, we may 
cite the well-known Freudian interpretation of stairs, steps, 
or ladders, 5 as coitus symbols. I admit readily this meaning 

1 " Dream Interpretation." 

* "Analytical Psychology," p. 222. 3 Ibid., p. 213. 

* " Psycho-Analysis," 2nd edition, p. 139. 

5 Stairs, steps, or ladders often appear where a change to some other level 
or state is indicated : as from death to life, from a higher to a lower moral 
status, from affluence to penury, and so forth. The going up, or climbing, 
may symbolise strenuous effort ; the coming down may mean relaxation of 
eSort, or possibly descent into the unconscious. Jacob's ladder is familiar to 
us ; and Frazer tells us in his " Folklore in the Old Testament " that, " Some 
peoples both in ancient and modern times have imagined that the souls of the 
dead pass up from earth to heaven by means of a ladder, and they have even 
placed miniature ladders in the graves in order to enable the ghosts to swarm 
up them to the abode of bliss. Thus in the Pyramid Tests, which are 
amongst the oldest literature of the world, mention is often made of the 
ladder up which dead Egyptian Kings climbed to the sky " (vol. ii. p. 56). 

" It is, or used to be, a popular belief in Russia, that the soul had to rise 
from the grave, and therefore certain aids to climbing were buried with the 



UNCONSCIOUS SYMBOLISM IN DREAMS 121 

is sometimes present, but I have looked for it in vain in scores 
of dreams where the free associations of the dreamer pointed 
to quite other interpretations. It is a misappropriation of 
symbols always to interpret them in the same way. When 
the attention is over-concentrated on any one idea (as, for 
instance, that all symbols have a sexual significance), it is 
possible to miss quite obvious meanings of another kind. 
Students of psycho-analysis will in the course of time have 
to adopt a broader basis for the interpretation of symbols than 
the exclusively sexual one. Freud has protested that he is 
"not responsible for the monotony of his interpretations." 
But if it is decided a 'priori that practically all ideas 
symbolised are sexual, no other ideas will be sought or 
tolerated ; and of course their number will seem few. 

" But the truth, the truth, the many eyes 
That look on it ! the diverse things they see 
According to their thirst for fruit or flowers ! " * 

Jung points out that primitive man was enabled to 
advance beyond his original state by the aid of the symbol. 2 
He had resistances against sexuality, and tendencies to im- 
prove his state. The imposition of tabu is the half-conscious 
legislation of the primitive against himself. This resistance 
against sexuality formed a block for the flowing libido, which 
then betook itself to another stratum of consciousness and, 
unable to realise its wishes wholly, fell back upon phantasy 
and the formation of symbols. Thus the energy was trans- 
ferred again to the unconscious sphere, as a result of "the 

corpse. Among these were plaited thongs of leather and small ladders. One 
of the most interesting specimens of survival to be found among the customs 
of the Russian peasantry is connected with this idea. Even at the present 
day, when many of them have forgotten the origin of the custom, they still, in 
some districts, make little ladders of dough, and have them baked for the 
benefit of the dead. In the Government of Voroneje a ladder of this sort, 
about three feet high, is set up at the time when a coffin is being carried to the 
grave " (Ibid., p. 57). 

" By such stairs . . . must we depart from so much ill." Dante's 
" Inferno," Canto sxsiv. lines 82-4. 

1 " Ballad of Fair Ladies in Revolt." Meredith. 

* " Psychology of the Unconscious," pp. 171 et seq. 



122 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

urge for sublimation," that is, the tendency in man which 
converts a lower aim into a higher. 

" The functional importance of the symbol is clearly shown 
in the history of civilisation. For thousands of years the 
religious symbol proved a most efficacious means in the moral 
education of mankind. . . . Concrete values cannot take the 
place of the symbol ; only new and more efficient ones can be 
substituted for those that are outworn, such, for instance, as 
those which have lost their efficacy through the progress of 
intellectual analysis and understanding. The further develop- 
ment of mankind can only be brought about by means of 
symbols which represent something far in advance of himself, 
and whose intellectual meanings cannot yet be grasped 
entirely. The individual consciousness produces such sym- 
bols, and they are of the greatest possible value in the moral 
development of the personality." 1 

We find that the formation of symbols arises from an 
inner necessity quite other than that imposed by the censor. 
A censor, if it exists, would seem to me to act in the conscious 
as the expression of any inhibitive force operative at the 
moment which prevents us from understanding what we have 
dreamed. It would be shown in the case of any emotion 
which prevents clear thinking, or i^j confusion of thought 
which interferes with feelings adapted to the occasion. It 
might be due either to immoral or moral motives. The good 
is inhibited as well as the bad. If the symbols appear to 
disguise, it is due, less to their inherent imperfections and the 
limitations of unconscious representations, than to the limita- 
tion of rational understanding. It is chiefly due, however, to 
the reluctance of the conscious mind to admit the existence 
of unrealised tendencies, whether creditable or discreditable. 
What is really unwelcome to consciousness is the repressed 
function. Not only the libertine, but also the rationalist, has 
great difficulty in admitting ideal or superstitious quasi- 
religious motives ; but the unconscious finds symbolic means 
of representing these tendencies in each case. The un- 
conscious view of any problem is compensatory to the 
1 " Collected Papers," p. svi. 



UNCONSCIOUS SYMBOLISM IN DEE A MS 123 

conscious. 1 It tones down and supplements the harshness 
and insufficiency of pure reason. 

There is a propensity in the unconscious to feel any 
inadequacy of conduct as guilt. In the dream of the grave- 
diggers, the dreamer had to see herself as the cause of her 
own depressing fate ; she had a persistent sense of guilt. 

By a gathering together of appropriate symbols, which lie 
ready in the unconscious, the dream-mind produces a myth 
or parable which, when understood, is full of penetrating wisdom. 

The thoroughgoing determinist is committed to explain 
the dream on causal principles only. In the dream analysed 
above, the causal meanings, as revealed by the free associa- 
tions, are very obvious. The self- depreciation is based on a 
mother-identification which has its roots in infantile sexual 
phantasies. But under-expressed ideas are also contained in 
the dream-thoughts, and point most clearly to a new way of 
solving the problem. 

We can agree with Freud's idea of the dream as a wish 
fulfilment only, with the added interpretation that it u wishes" 
to give also a psychological view that is compensatory to 
consciousness. It reveals emotional tendencies and hidden 
thoughts that should modify conduct, with which they formerly 
interfered subconsciously in a disastrous manner. 

As the flower holds nectar, so the unconscious contains 
wisdom. But we must go to it, garnering it in obedience to 
its own laws, and by work and effort making it into the honey 
of life. Not without labour shall we gather our store. If in 
the course of psycho-analytic treatment the dream interpreta- 
tion indicates a new understanding of Life, and a different view 
of duty, the patient must take the new path, or a still more 
unfavourable situation is brought about. We cannot with 
impunity ignore what we know, for that leads to further 
repression, and deeper neurosis. 

Traffic with the unconscious is not free from danger. It 
either contracts or enlarges the personality. It never leaves 
it unchanged. This is one of the grave perils of medium- 
ship, occultism, and mysticism. The phenomena that come 
1 " Analytical Psychology," p. 307. " Dream Psychology," chap. iv. Nicoll. 



124 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

under these headings can only be safely studied in their 
proper sphere, namely, that of psychology. The symbolical 
dress of the unconscious makes it something of a trickster, as 
those who handle it unconditionally may discover, even to the 
extent of losing their orientation. 

A case in point occurred in my practice. Miss P. had 
always been interested in psychic phenomena, but had a 
shrinking from " spiritualism." She heard addresses from two 
well-known divines of the Church of England in 1915 and 
1916, in which they urged their hearers to study psychic 
matters more thoroughly. This coincided with her wishes, 
and when the head of her Government Department inci- 
dentally gave similar advice, she consulted a woman psycho- 
metrist, and a male clairvoyant. The former gave some 
correct facts, the latter, who struck her unpleasantly, compli- 
mented her on the remarkable results obtained by a novice. 
Miss P. proved, in fact, to be a good medium. She next had 
sittings with a professional, and received " messages " from a 
dead relative. 

She then joined a circle of educated persons for purposes 
of experimentation and used a planchette, which quickly 
wrote the name of the dead relative. Numerous sittings 
took place with and without a professional medium. She 
herself sometimes took the place of the medium. At two 
of these sittings she went into a trance, which she disliked 
very much. 

Every day during her summer holidays she did some auto- 
matic writing, in which messages came apparently from dead 
friends. The automatic writing did not enchant her par- 
ticularly, but the holiday passed pleasantly until one morning 
an accident happened. 

One of the house party was gardening and standing on 
a high step-ladder. In passing, Miss P. called out to her, 
" Don't stretch up to that ivy, Muriel, you will fall." Muriel 
answered that she was quite safe, and Miss P. passed on but 
with a slight feeling of uneasiness. On returning a little 
later she saw her friend lying on the ground in what she 
subsequently learned was an epileptic fit. It looked as if she 



rxcoxsciors symbolism in dreams 125 

had fallen from the ladder, and Miss P. blamed herself greatly 
that she had not stayed to hold it. 

As she looked at her convulsed and unconscious friend she 
was terribly repelled, and thought of her as being possessed 
by an evil spirit. Taat night she could not sleep. She 
began to think she too might have a fit. During the following- 
four weeks she appeared to be outwardly well and calm, but 
was inwardly assailed by horrible fears, of which she was 
terribly ashamed. 

She was just beginning to feel better when a neighbour's 
wife, lon^ ill with tuberculosis, suddenly went out of her mind 
and had to be removed to an asylum, Miss P. could not bear 
to hear this woman talked about, and thoughts of her were 
accompanied by fear that she herself might become insane. 

In the middle of her holiday another disturbing thing 
happened. Xews came that a younger brother was "'missing." 
Presently messages were written from him automatically, as 
though he were dead. Six weeks later news came that he 
was a prisoner in Germany. This gave her a terrible moral 
shock. That this mistake could have occurred seemed to 
invalidate all the other messages purporting to come from 
the dead. 

In the autumn she returned to her professional work, but 
was constantly troubled with fears of epilepsy and insanity. 
These fears were increased when a month later news came that 
the insane woman had escaped from the asylum and had 
committed suicide. This brought back the old feelings of 
horror and apprehension, and she became so weak that in 
alarm she consulted me. At this time she looked very frail 
and ill, and was subject to extreme fear, so much so that the 
opening up of the unconscious analytically was a matter of 
some anxiety to me. After a certain amount of dream analysis, 
however, her fear diminished and her symptoms subsided. 

Her former unconditioned entrance into the subconscious 
realm had paved the way for her subsequent identification with 
her unconscious epileptic friend, and with the woman who 
became insane and suicidal. The mediumistic state is one of 
identification with the unconscious psyche itself, and few can 



126 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

stand it without moral or physical deterioration. The un- 
conscious stages of epilepsy, and the state of insanity (and 
indeed the resulting suicide), are instances of the overwhelming 
pathological effects of falling into the unconscious. By a 
process of introjection Miss P. participated in both states, and 
was threatened with a very serious nervous collapse. 

The tendency to unconscious identifications forms one 
reason why psycho-analysts of experience always urge upon 
those who desire to practise psycho-analysis, a thorough course 
of personal analysis at the hands of an expert. It is essential, 
so far as is humanly possible, to eliminate the errors we are 
bound to fall into until we recognise our own unconscious 
complexes and predispositions. No uniformity of opinion 
need be feared, but until we are familiar with our own un- 
conscious minds we cannot justly estimate the general pheno- 
mena of the unconscious. No genuine student can now afford 
to ignore the new way of scientific approach to a study of the 
mind. Before man had science to aid his mental apprehension 
he was right to approach the unknown by intuition. 

Philosophers have long known intuitively many things 
which we now know scientifically, but to rely too exclu- 
sively upon intuition, is to travel upon a regressive, more 
primitive path. To-day we need to correct intuition by 
science, and enrich science by intuition. The student of the 
occult would be wise first to know himself, and find out in 
what way he is liable to be biased in judgment throuo-h un- 
conscious complexes, and to realise in his observations those 
phenomena which merely express his own unconscious. 

As long as we are identified with the unconscious, no 
matter how splendid a visionary world we inhabit, we are out 
of adequate contact with life itself. 

The crippling kind of mysticism leads man away from 
earth to regions of the imagination, whereupon common life 
loses its interest and intensity. Enlightened mysticism leads 
us to develop the precious faculties lying dormant in the 
unconscious, and to enrich our mundane existence by using 
those psychic powers of vision and perception which carry the 
profound conviction that the " kingdom of heaven is within." 



VII 

SEX AS A BASIS OF CHARACTER 1 

I A3I not proposing to take up the subject of character as a 
general question, but to limit myself to a certain narrow 
analytic view of it on the basis of sex. 

We are at an epoch in history when there is a crying need 
for good citizens. By good citizens we mean people of valu- 
able character ; we cannot change the human material at our 
disposal, but we can make the most of the least of it. It is 
quite certain that we have within us all that we need for the 
well-being of ourselves and the world at large, but it is not 
all come-at-able. It is of deep concern that the character of 
the rising generation should be developed to its full measure. 
to meet the demands of the problems of reconstruction. ZS"ew 
times demand new characters in a sense. This is possible 
because character is the perpetual acquisition of something 
that is at all times incomplete. Its first requisite is that it 
should be capable of growth. Like a tree it must bend in 
response to external storms while at the same time it strikes 
its roots deeper into the soiL 

The effect of character is seen in reaction to life. It is of 
the essence of character that one may calculate more or less 
certainly on the way a given man will respond to life's demands. 
Bat we are subject to surprise, we find action sometimes 
exceeds our expectations, and quite as often disappoints 
them. If we look for a moment at the outside world we get 
a hint of these surprises. The war has demonstrated a great 
amount of heroism, of patient self-sacrifice, of endurance, of 

1 Paper read at the International Congress of Women Physicians, New 
York, October 3, 1919. Reprinted from the Psychoanalytic Review, vol. vii. 
January 1, 1920, by kind permission, 

127 



128 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

tireless discipline and devotion to duty. There is also witness 
to love of home, pity for comrades and enemies, sometimes 
orgies of vice, complete indiscipline, total disregard of loved 
ones, and violent expressions of vindictiveness and revenge. 

Any emergency in life may call out such passionate feel- 
ings. The making of war or peace are only examples of 
special emergency, where rapid changes of thought and 
habits are involved. Of all the factors that give rise to un- 
expectedness none are so influential as unconscious sex-motives. 
National action is individual action multiplied a thousandfold. 
If we concentrate on the intensive study of one man only we 
come to understand the general springs of conduct. But to 
understand this one man we must study not only his conscious, 
but his unconscious mind. 

The psychological view forces us to realise that the un- 
conscious side of the mind plays a far larger part in our 
actions than is generally supposed. The unconscious elements 
of the man's mind may be antagonistic to the conscious 
elements, and the inner conflict, though altogether unknown, 
may be so severe as to frustrate the best intentions. St. Paul 
exclaims poignantly : " I find a law then that when I would 
do good evil is present with me." It is the examination of 
this law of the unconscious that has led me to think that the 
sex basis of character I am about to put before you is of vast 
importance. 

I am taking it for granted that the outline of the theory 
of the unconscious miud is known to you. But for the sake 
of clearness permit me to give a very brief resume of some 
conceptions regarding it. 

It comprises the general mental dispositions which are not 
only a personal inheritance but an inheritance of all the ages. 
It becomes the receptacle of all the memories of experiences 
in an individual's life that are no longer wanted in conscious- 
ness, and also of the memories of phantasies and dreams, and 
of abortive or full-grown thoughts and feelings. Not only 
does it belong to the past, but to the future, for it contains all 
that germinal material which will later on exhibit itself in 
consciousness. 



SEX AS A BASIS OF CHARACTER 129 

Dr. Ernest Jones, summarising Freud, describes the un- 
conscious mind as haYing six characteristics. 1 " Firstly, it is 
the result of repression. This repression occurs because the 
unconscious mental processes are of a character that is incom- 
patible with the civilised conscious personality. Secondly, 
the unconscious is dynamic in its nature, the processes are 
conative in type, conveniently described as wishes. Thirdly, 
it is the home of the crude instincts. Fourthly, it is infantile 
in character, and persists in an unchanged manner throughout 
life. Fifthly, it ignores moral standards and is illogical. 
Sixthly, it is sexual in character, and the sexuality is of a 
crude and infantile type." 

This description of the unconscious, though true so far as it 
goes, is to my thinking a depreciative and partial one. Nor am 
I fully in accord with Dr. Lay's view of it when he portrays it 
as a mighty Titan whose demon forces we can and must harness 
to our uses, but whose tendencies are mainly mischievous. 2 
But while the worst that has been said of the unconscious 
represents some of its aspects, it has many others. It is the 
source of intuitive knowledge, and origins of religions. It is 
the germinal place of mental and emotional forces, it is a chaos 
of infinite resources, it is the home of all that afterwards 
through elaboration finds itself in consciousness. It is in the 
conscious that the moral judgments are formed, but it is from 
the unconscious that the representing dreams and phantasies 
are produced, and these, when interpreted and understood, are 
of a nature that reveal rather than obscure the harmonies of 
life. They reflect, as Jung has pointed out, the psychological 
state of the dreamer. The character of these phantasies is so 
discriminating that we are forced to concede to the unconscious 
a morality and logic of its own. The same psychological 
functions of thought and feeling work, but in a different 
medium. Seeing that the unconscious mind is one with the 
conscious it is unlikely that its attributes are wholly different. 

"With this view we are encouraged to steer past " the rocks 
of asceticism and the whirlpools of sense " to the very sources 

1 " Papers on Psychoanalysis," 2nd edition, chap. vi. 
• " Man's Unconscious Conflict." Wilfred Lav, Ph.D. 

9 



130 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

of our being. The question is, can we find our true orientation 
in the midst of the phenomena of the unconscious, and, accept- 
ing our relative ignorance, shoulder the responsibility this new 
line of research imposes upon us ? Through the study of the 
unconscious mind we have a new approach to the universal 
storehouse of wisdom. We penetrate the depths that existed 
before all philosophy or science. Perhaps the discovery of the 
technique of the unconscious, that is, dream analysis, is the 
greatest discovery of our time. It is, however, a very young 
science, and born with all the possibilities of growth and also 
of error. It has been claimed as a merit that Freud's theories 
were launched in an almost perfect state, and that practically 
nothing of importance has been added to them since. While 
doing homage to the master mind of Freud, I see neither 
merit nor truth in this claim to perfection. Whilst, as far as 
I know, Freud has said little that cannot be scientifically 
maintained, he has said far less than the whole truth. 
Contributions of great importance have been added by other 
schools. But when all is said, it is Freud's genius that has 
given us the key to the unconscious, and a method of highest 
value. He has not given us the unconscious, except in the 
sense that Christopher Columbus gave us the New World. 
What we have already found there bids us be humble about 
the whole contents. It also bids us remodel certain of our 
ideas in accordance with our findings. We may not ignore 
what we know from fear of what we may yet have to know. 
Psychoanalysis, as all the portents show, is destined to permeate 
medical practice and educational systems, and it is in recogni- 
tion of this fact that I ask your attention while I put before 
you some of the fundamental bases of character that lie in the 
elemental constituents of sex. 

I must ask your consideration for a moment of an analytic 
concept of libido. Freud used the term libido to indicate 
sexual desire and longings under wide aspect. Its connotation 
corresponds with that of the word " hunger." 1 The American 
psychiatrist, Putnam, uses the word " craving " as the nearest 

1 Prof. J. W. Scott, of Cardiff University, has suggested the word conatus 
in the sense in which Spinoza uses it. 



SEX AS A BASIS OF CHARACTER 131 

English equivalent. Claparede calls it " interet " ; others 
have tried " psychic energy," but all these terms lack some- 
thing. I once thought when I heard Professor Murray lecture 
on the Stoic Philosophy that the missing word was "phusis," 
but even that does not altogether fit. Libido may be applied 
to destructive striving, as well as to struggle towards growth. 
Hence one comes back to the word libido, using it in Jung's 
sense, as applying to any passionate interest, or form of life-force. 

His is an energic conception, which supposes a hypothetical 
stream of force that accompanies the individual throughout 
life. It is essentially vital impulse, dynamic in character, and 
capable of endless transformations. In the course of life there 
is a determination of libido to any point of need. It is 
available for every purpose of growth and development and 
repair. It can penetrate every recess of man's being. It can 
be in the conscious or unconscious. Like physical energy it is 
incapable of becoming more or less, hence the question of its 
application and availability is of utmost importance. 

One may think of libido in terms of man-power. An attack 
is going on at the Western front ; it is to that point the man- 
power is sent, representing the available libido. More and 
more may be required, and as long as more is available the 
front is held, but not without weakening and risks at some 
other spot. Hence there is need for adaptability. Very 
much depends not only on the quantity of man-power but on 
its mobility. So it is in the psychic realm. There is plenty 
of libido if only we can make it available for our purposes. We 
might think of directed libido as " will," and yet it is not only 
will, for libido is mainly undifferentiated desire and creative - 
ness. The desire and will elements of libido are often in 
opposition. When such a conflict takes place in consciousness 
it leads to mental change, to education. When the stream of 
libido is applied mainly to the unconscious, phantasy- weaving 
gains too great a relative value. 

Such deflection of the libido streams brings about partial 
or complete splitting of consciousness. Minutes or hours pass 
by without leaving proper traces in consciousness. When our 
pupils or patients are full of day-dreams, we may be sure their 



132 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

interest is not with their work, and that their libido is flowing 
in regressive channels. They are mis-nsing imagination and 
its notions to compensate for the present difficulties of life. 
Such a regression of libido most often occurs when new 
responsibilities have to be assumed or when special new 
adaptation is required, as when there is a change from home 
to school, or from college to business, corresponding with a 
change from peace to war in national life. Emotional problems 
with a loved or hated parent, or teacher or companion, are 
sufficient to bring about a breakdown in specially sensitive 
persons ; this is particularly the case when the cause of the 
conflict is mainly unconscions. 

Day-dreams have another significance, and one which 
mnst not be overlooked by the physician or teacher. They 
often occur when the child or adolescent wants to know some- 
thing which he feels unable to ask. 1 Sometimes he is hardly 
aware what he wants to know. The greatest problems of life 
at this epoch centre "around sex. If from timidity or repression 
he is unable to satisfy his intellectual or emotional needs, he 
falls hack upon imagination, and by this means apprehends 
what he can, and invents fictions where thought and feeling 
fail to instruct him. This is the time when regressive 
tendencies appear, to which I shall refer in due course. 

The next step in the present study of the basis character 
is to be found in a consideration of the bi-sexuality or herma- 
phroditic character of the human being. There is no ex- 
clusively masculine man or exclusively feminine woman. 
Ekek bears traces of the other sex, not only physiologically 
but psychologically. The importance of this well-known fact 
is not sufficiently realised. For some five weeks of pre-natal 
life the human embryo appears to be undifferentiated as to 
sex.- As far as we know it could become either male or 

1 See " The Psychic Life of the Child/' Jung's " Analytical Psychology." 
1 Medical opinion inclines to the idea that the endocrine glands play a 
considerable par: in She =ex characteristics of the human being, but just what 
part is extremely uncertain At present there is neither consensus of opinion 
nor uniformity of experience. Should the matter come to be accurately 
iebeamned, the special psychological content will still remain in need of 
explanation, for we are souls as well as bodies. 






SEX AS A BASIS OF CHARACTER 133 

female. A few weeks later rudimentary organs of an unmis- 
takable character are formed. At birth the child, whose sex 
organs are now fully formed for later maturity, is still psycho- 
logically undifferentiated. If the boy and girl are dressed 
and trained alike, several months will elapse before casual 
examination will inform us of the child's sex. 

In mature life each sex does under certain conditions 
display what are somewhat arbitrarily distinguished as qualities 
belonging to the other sex. Under war conditions this 
capacity is an asset of extraordinary value. It is not only 
that a mixture of sex tendencies is present, but there is also 
an amount of available libido which gives a certain capacity, 
even zest, for the performance of each other's relegated task. 
This comes out in the play-instinct, as every one knows who 
has anything to do with the preparation of school and college 
plays. There is no lack of enthusiasm for playing the role of 
hero or heroine by a person of the opposite sex. 

We have already briefly touched upon three aspects of the 
basis of character — 

First, the existence of the unconscious mind, with its 
contribution of unknown motive. 

Second, the presence of psychic energy designated libido. 

Third, the bi-sexual predisposition of every individual. 

Further light is to be obtained by a consideration of the 
normal components of sexuality itself. It was Freud who 
first described clearly to us that the normal sexual impulse 
has a threefold character of auto-erotism, homo-sexuality and 
hetero-sexuality. 1 

Auto-erotism is that love of self to which a portion of the 
libido is devoted. It is manifested in various ways ranging 
from the bodily instinct that expresses itself in masturbation, 
or the psychic equivalents of self-centredness, sexual phan- 
tasies, and Narcissism, to the sublimated purpose of self- 
discipline, self-valuation, and self-realisation involving com- 
plete autonomy. 

Homo-sexuality is love for one of the same sex. Its 
tendencies are manifested on different levels of development 

1 "Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory." 



134 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

or mental culture. It can show itself in the instinctive animal 
form of mutual masturbation on the appetitive stage, or in the 
rational and purposive stage in conceptions of brotherhood, 
mutual aid and noble friendship. 

Hetero-sexuality is the recognised normal sexuality, love 
of the other sex. It covers the phenomena of seduction and 
prostitution, no less than the best expression of love in mutual 
consideration between man and woman, family love, and it 
provides some of the highest motives of citizenship. 

We have been accustomed to call the first two components 
abnormal, but when these tendencies are submitted to psycho- 
logical estimation we' find them to be just as essential in the 
make-up and development of the individual as hetero-sexuality 
itself. 

Plotinus had the idea that the soul in its desire to develop 
itself, separates itself from the Divine Universal Soul, and 
descends into generation, in order that it may by reason of 
its sojourn in the inferior body individualise itself. In a 
similar way the process of individuation belongs to our 
mundane existence. At any moment the soul, or the in- 
dividual, is in danger of being entangled in the web of life, 
and nowhere is there greater danger than from unrecognised 
sexuality. The more so that the way of redemption lies 
through sense rather than in spite of it. We should seek to 
make the best of both worlds, and no longer repress but rather 
express what belongs to our vital animal processes. 

We dare not despise sense, for that of which we take too 
little heed has a dangerous way of tripping us up. We must 
bring down our too lofty ideals to fit them better to our 
instinctive nature, thus raising instinct to the human sphere, 
and make fullest use of all the powers that are ours by right. 
In this sense we must approach the question of sexuality, and 
detaching ourselves from the preconceived feelings of con- 
ventional morality, which at present are simply ours by 
adoption, regard the subject anew, that we may differentiate 
our attitude towards its components and find out what is 
actually going on in ourselves and those round about us. 

Auto-erotism. When we turn our attention to the sexual 



SEX AS A BASIS OF CHAEACTER 135 

trends in greater detail, the auto-erotic component is the first 
to attract onr notice. The infant starts life as an entirely 
ego-centric being. For him the objective world does not 
exist save as an extension of his own consciousness. " "With 
no language but a cry" he brings about changes in his 
environment. He apprehends the universe through his sense 
perceptions, and his own body is necessarily of unique im- 
portance to him. He incidentally and naturally finds certain 
pleasure z:>ues in it. which again in turn quite naturally lose 
their interest for him in consciousness. At times his bodily 
functions attract his attention. His cioly is close to him — his 
nearest plaything. Therein are mysterious processes, his own 
creations., and objects on to which he projects his phantasies. 
He is busy constructing the beginnings of thought out of his 
experiences. In dreams of later life excreta not infrequently 
form symbolic material for dreams. This is a revival of 
infantile phantasies and pleasures which have a certain 
analogical appropriateness for the immediate problems of 
later life. Under analysis it is seen how these primitive 
nature-things have become the bridges to more developed 
ideas. The child no less than the adult has an implicit 
working theory of the universe. He evolves his thought out 
of his phantasies. Just as the dream or phantasy abstracts 
itself from the general unconsciousness, so later thought 
abstracts itself from phantasy, and losing its subjective 
character gains an objective expression. As the child grows 
the libido devoted to auto-erotism becomes differently directed. 
He strives to make himself a "little man." He goes on in 
the direction of the educational pnsh. to establish himself as 
a person who can feed himself instead of being fed, can 
present a clean or a dirty face, can please or displease, and 
gain smile or frown from others for himself. So he obtains 
a certain power over his environment and realises that many 
an infant joy is sacrificed to maintain it. Thus the auto- 
erotic tendency is more or less transformed into self-love and 
self -development. In later life this transformation is neces- 
sarily much more consciously carried out. Xot all the auto- 
eroticism, however,, is sublimated. >Some is repressed into the 



136 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

unconscious., whence it re-enters consciousness in various 
ways, supplying an emotional tone not always capable of an 
obvious explanation. Time forbids us to go into the subject 
of repression, save to say that the reason for it is to be found 
in the battle of the higher over the lower self, and the great 
difficulties life presents. Throughout life the sublimated 
auto-erotic tendencies are oi highest value, being embodied in 
desires for knowledge, for excellence in sport., for work, for 
'•' creation out of the self/' We could ill spare this component 
from the sexual trinity, even though it plunges us into many 
pitfalls on the path of life. 

It is not uncommon to get an outbreak of auto-erotic 
practices at special epochs in life ; as during puberty and 
adolescence, or when a difficult emotional problem presents 
itself, accompanied by repression. This is similar in appear- 
ance to, though different in meaning from, the passing infantile 
masturbation which usually becomes latent very soon after it 
appears. Whenever the tendency manifests itself later, it 
implies a regression of libido, that is, a return to a former and 
no longer appropriate mode of adaptation. These habits 
should not be regarded too reprehensively. They should 
rather serve as a sign that something of significance is going 
on in the psychic life of the child or youth. Xow is the 
opportunity to find what is causing the block in the mental 
or emotional life. These practices are always accompanied 
by a sense oi self-depreciation and feeling of inferiority and 
guilt. At such times the ready-made moralist is apt to come 
down upon the delinquent with crushing force, driving him 
further into himself, and the slough of his own despair. But 
what we find is after all a creative tendency that is off the 
lines. The practice is symptomatic, and does not always 
indicate a sexual need, but may be a surrogate for another 
need. Almost all normal persons, not only incidentally and 
transiently as in babyhood, indulge sporadically in auto- 
erotic practices, or at least in auto-erotic phantasies autistic 
thought) which have the same significance. 

It is Nature's way to teach us from error as well as from 
truth, and many a neurotic fear would be avoided in later life 



SEX AS A BASIS OF CHARACTER 137 

if we would stndy this problem again from the beginning. 
The crael threats that are used to stop masturbation are in 
themselves a cause of much needless suffering. " Shall I 
become insane ? " " Have I done myself irrevocable harm ? " 
are questions not rarely put to me in my consulting-room. 
As I have said before, these habits sometimes arise when the 
child has a personal problem for which it is desirable to find 
another answer. 

At times masturbation acts as a safety valve for the pent- 
up sexual forces, but it is after all u a fraud upDn the natural 
development of thin??., because all the dynamic forces which 
can and should serve cultural development are withdrawn from 
it through onanism." l Erink considers that its occurrence is 
probably normal, and that its complete absence is more often 
found in neurotic persons. 2 Tactile masturbation is less 
common in girls than boys, but sexual phantasies are more 
common. The serious effects of the habit are certainly over- 
stated, and quite other than the orthodox opinion of the last 
generation led us to suppose. They belong to the injured 
moral feelings rather .than to the habit itself. It is. however. 
undoubted that excessive masturbation is deleterious. It 
leads to isolation, egoism, and misanthropy as a defence against 
the feelings of inferiority. To attack the problem of auto- 
erotism is of fundamental importance in the development of 
the individual, who must free himself in this matter, both 
from the collective prohibitions and the collective vices. 

Next we pass to an even more delicate problem — that of 
homo-sexualitv. 

This subject has been brought Wore us in England 
recently by two very able novelists. Miss Clemence Dane's 
story of a girls' school called " The Regiment of Women," 
and Alec Waugh's (: Loom of Youth." dealing with a boy's 
public school life, have given us to think furiously. It is 
a strange phenomenon that in the professional classes our 
problems often have to be brought home to us from the outside. 
That these books and others of like character should have 

1 " Psychology of the Unconscious," p. 137. 

: F. W. Frink, " Proceedings,'" Int. Conf. Worn. Phys., New York. 



138 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

appeared now is a sign of the times for those who can read 
portents. 

The European "War has had the effect of separating men 
and women and massing together those of one sex. It has 
produced tremendous emotional problems of every sort. It 
has torn youthful civilians from home and normal conditions 
of life, and placed them under conditions where the ordinary 
moral notions are entirely reversed. Living through months 
of segregation as in camps, barracks, on ships, and on expedi- 
tions, is not a new thing, but it is accentuated by being 
experienced on such a huge scale. We have already a few 
obvious legacies from these cataclysmic times. There is a mass 
of venereal disease, a great outbreak of hysteria and other 
psychoneuroses among men, and not least there is a shortage of 
some ten million men in Europe. At such times homo-sexuality 
is bound to make its appearance as a problem for humanity. 

Something else has been happening. Women have been 
obliged willy-nilly to do men's work in engine yards, in 
munition factories, on the land — in every field in fact of 
industrial and professional life. Something male in a 
woman's psychology has been called for, and we have seen 
there is a latent sex-element which enables her to respond. 
In fact, the regulation tasks of the sexes have been completely 
mixed, for in many camps and hospitals the women's work has 
been done exclusively by men. 

If homo-sexuality crops up at such a time, as my foregoing 
remarks show, its existence is not new. Perhaps the necessity 
to accept and consider it as one of the problems of our times 
is new. Franker discussion of all sex problems has made 
it possible to consider it here to-day. 

Homo-sexuality then is love for members of the same sex. 
It begins at home among brothers and brothers, sisters and 
sisters, and has always united mothers and daughters, fathers 
and sons in bonds of friendly love. This useful emotion is 
emphasised in school and college life, and not excluded from 
existence and importance by the fact of co-education. It has 
great value in promoting esprit de coi-ps. It can act against 
imposed discipline, for it sometimes unites and strengthens 



SEX AS A BASIS OF CHAKACTER 139 

the class against the teacher. Where the teacher is hated, 
friendly bonds between the scholars are relatively strengthened, 
because they aid the spirit of revolt, or render servitude less 
intolerable. It has been historically significant in times of 
slavery. It has a personal value. It is the beginning of 
lasting friendships. It is a way in which humans find some 
of their relations with each other and with society. A spoiled 
child, intractable at home, often accepts without question the 
discipline shared, or indeed administered, by school fellows. 
The education children give each other on this basis is no less 
important than that which they receive from their parents and 
teachers. 

Through juxtaposition the love problems that are suitable 
to the age are experienced and must be solved on the basis of 
childhood and adolescence. The young ones must be allowed 
to go in the direction of their life's currents, helped, hindered, 
and warned, by the wisdom, not the prejudice, of the parent or 
teacher. It is for the seniors to study the problem in all 
its bearings, and take a constructive attitude towards it. 
" Young, all lay in dispute ; I shall know, being old," says 
the sage. What is wanted here is understanding between the 
generations; more confidence and less hostility between the 
two. Personal friendships which are fraught with such fair 
promises have their dangers too. The erotic element is 
capable of taking concrete and undesirable forms. Here, too, 
the heavy hand of conventional morality comes down with 
excessive tyranny, and boys particularly, and more rarely 
girls, are sometimes summarily expelled from school for an 
error they but half understand. Some promising careers have 
been wrecked this way, and love, which is such a valuable 
teacher, has been tortured into a demon shape. 

Such punishment either makes rebels, or it plunges the 
culprit into the abyss of self-depreciation. It fastens a reputa- 
tion — which is apt to stick. It turns a tendency, or a partial 
component of the sex life, into a fixed form of a kind that 
does poor service to the race or individual. 

Here again, error presents an opportunity to those who 
would teach. 



140 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

This problem cannot be considered from the standpoint of 
the scholar only. Teachers are concerned with it. Whether 
we like it or not, boys and girls ponr upon teachers of the 
same sex an amount of such lore. It is natural. It is 
a kind of lore that has a purpose to serve at this age. By its 
ideal character, by its Tery aloofness, it tides the scholar oyer 
many a difficult place. It gives a standard to lire up to ; for 
it is rank folly to think the young are fit to act in every 
emergency, or can know at all stages what is best for them- 
selves. They need models, and good ones; otherwise they 
will create them out of the unconscious. 

"What is important is that the teacher should be sure of 
his own ground, and should unite in his conduct the wisdom 
of the serpent with the harmlessness of the dove. 

If the hetero-sexual love is stimulated too early and too 
severely it means a cutting short of a different kind of 
emotional experience more suited to the age of the individual. 

In the " Regiment of Women " the situation is drawn with 
great skill. Clare Hartill, ambitious for her class and for 
the success that reflects the glory of the teacher, used the 
devotion she had the gift to inspire, for the purpose of power. 
She could not live without sensation, and obtained it from 
the erotic love of younger teachers and scholars. One of her 
pupils in an access of emotionalism throws herself out of the 
window. The story of a young girl's suicide is rare, but it is 
not unsupported by fact. The love was not recognised for 
what it was, either by Clare Hartill, or by her admirers. 
She could not have faced the word homo-sexuality. Nor 
could the Principal and her fellow-teachers have allowed 
things to reach such a pass had they analysed the situation. 

The picture in the " Loom of Youth " is different. There 
a situation of conscious homo-sexuality among schoolboys is 
disclosed. One of the boys who happens to be caught is 
expelled. Sexuality is much more conscious among boys 
than among girls. It is equally important and prevalent in 
both sexes. To ignore it among girls, and to punish it so 
cruelly among boys is equally unfair to the young. 

Do we treat it in this way because it saves us from thinking 






SEX AS A BASIS OF CHARACTER 141 

about a very difficult problem? Thought requires that we 
should each find our orientation to the problem. To do this 
we must examine the content of our own sexuality, both con- 
scious and unconscious. In this way we gain an insight that 
gives us understanding and wisdom in dealing with others. 

How far may we use this natural tendency in education ? 
Do we not find a good rapport between a teacher and his class 
of highest value? Can we not educate much more easily 
those who love us ? If this is so, shall we close our eyes to 
our responsibility or. fearful of the god Eros, shall we clothe 
our discipline in unremitting sternness or tyranny ? Must 
we not, on the contrary, shoulder our responsibility ? The 
children watch us. They begin to behave to their problems 
as we do to ours. "Where we are reverent and frank they will 
also be reverent and frank. If we are prudish and repressed 
they will imitate us. TVhen we are carried away by undis- 
ciplined feelings of love or power, they will be only too quick 
to let erotic emotions and the desire to impose personality 
play havoc with their lives, a havoc which has more than a 
temporary influence. 

The dangers of mishandling this problem are very grave. 
To class a youth as homo-sexual is to put him into a category 
to which in all probability he does not belong. In this way 
we manufacture homo-sexuals. It is even a question whether 
people who are exclusively homo-sexual really exist. I think 
they do. But the majority so-called are so because the libido 
which might have gone on to the further hetero-sexual stage 
becomes fixed in this immature and regressive form, so that 
the highest type of actual love in an individual case never 
outgrows this character; and difficulties which are estimated 
as " insuperable," are experienced in loving a member of the 
opposite sex. 

The homo-sexual tendency may become " fixed," because 
in the absence of personal effort and development, it is the 
easiest sexual expression life offers to a given individual. It 
arises as we have seen out of unnatural conditions such as the 
segregation of the sexes, — or out of the economic difficulties 
in the way of marriage. Among women, whose numbers 



142 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

considerably surpass those of men, there is an arithmetical 
reason for it in the impossibility of marriage. Less reason for 
it exists amongst adult men, since the whole of the sex life is 
more or less arranged for their convenience, except in the 
case of genuine homo-sexuals, who are of course very much 
fewer than those who indulge in homo-sexual practices. 
Justice demands that we should allow the genuine homo-sexual 
to express what is his normal sexuality in his own way. In 
many respects he is already heavily handicapped by nature. 
We make homo-sexuality a penal offence in men. It is 
absurd in the present state of social morality to inflict 
penalties upon, and expose to blackmail, men who live 
their sexual life privately and decently, even though they 
do not conform to so-called normal standards. Personally, I 
would recommend the removal of homo-sexuality from the 
penal code, but make seduction of a minor an offence, whether 
homo-sexual or hetero-sexual, and raise the " age of consent " 
considerably for both sexes. 

I do not propose to discuss the hetero-sexual content of 
love to-day. Not that it is absent in any part of life. It is 
always present even in the child ; it is always pushing itself 
towards maturity. Its first block occurs where a too passionate 
devotion to the parent of the opposite sex is fastened upon 
the father or mother by the child. This may have the effect 
of making him homesick and inadaptable. But the ready 
transference of the parent image of authority or love, to the 
teacher, assists in breaking up this too dependent attitude, 
and at the same time modifies the other elements of the 
emotional life. Each stage must in turn be psychologically 
experienced and surpassed. 

I feel in introducing this subject for discussion I am 
voicing problems every really thoughtful physician and 
teacher is constantly meeting. There are no ready-made 
solutions. The facts already there need more open considera- 
tion. There was a time when the medical profession did not 
dare to face the problem of sexual disease. Bitter social 
experience has forced it on us. The emotional life is part of 
our common humanitv, and " the course of true love never 



SEX AS A BASIS OF CHARACTER 143 

did run smooth." At any moment, thanks to the instincts, 
awkward sex elements may intrude themselves. My experience 
as a physician leads me to believe that the emotional problems 
of the married are no more or less severe than those of the un- 
married, and that both men and women have much the same 
sexual problems, and are in a similar mental relation to them. 
Friendship which we all like to think is untroubled by sex, is 
often wrecked upon it, and that most often where the sex 
element remains unconscious. At all stages of life sense gives 
soul its opportunity, and soul helps sense. In every human 
relation there is need of sacrifice, self-control, and mutual 
consideration. 



Yin 

UNCONSCIOUS FACTOKS IN SEX-EDUCATION 1 

In approaching the subject of sex-education the point I desire 
to emphasise is that in the unconscious mind of the pupil we 
have a factor that falsifies a great deal of sex instruction. It 
is on account of the unconscious mind that class instruction 
on matters of sex is often useless, or even pernicious. 

Sex-teaching, as I understand it from the pedagogic stand- 
point, has two sides : one deals with facts of sex, the other 
with moral ideas. 

I submit the only side that can be taught with advantage 
in classes of young children deals with the facts of sex, and 
even here the facts are best approached through study of the 
development and fertilisation of plants and animals. Human 
physiology should be left to the senior classes. When the 
time is ripe the children will effect a junction of ideas 
themselves, intuitively. 

It is better that the facts should be dealt out to them im- 
personally. I object to implanting in the minds of children the 
idea of the " sacredness of sex." It would be better to emphasise 
what is human in sex. The generative organs are no more or 
less sacred than the brain or stomach, nor are the generative 
processes more or less wonderful than the cerebral and assimi- 
lative functions. We are in any case " fearfully and wonder- 
fully made," and we should give the right attention to each 
and every part and function. 

It cannot be denied that sex assumes an enormous, even 
overwhelming, importance in life ; but let us diverge from our 
main topic to discuss for a moment conditions under which 
the gustatory organs and functions exceed in importance, 

1 Lecture delivered at University College, -January 9, 1920. 
144 



UNCONSCIOUS FACTORS IS SEX-EDUCATION 145 

temporarily at any rate, that of sex. In infancy and old age 
the sex function is quite secondary to the nutritive function, 
and at other times in life they run in close rivalry. TVhen 
famine and hunger threaten, the gustatory function at once 
becomes pre-eminent in importance. At such a time, the 
phantasies contributed by the unconscious mind, centre not 
around love, but around food. 

As an example of this, Scott and Shackleton have told U3 
about foods becoming the main topic of conversation and of 
dreams, as the Arctic explorers and their parties approached 
nearer and nearer to starvation. In certain dire circumstances, 
men who seemed far removed from the primitive, have been 
known to kill one another for a last bite of food, and have 
in extremis even become cannibals. Such incidents remind 
us we have a vast background of primitive and animal ancestry 
behind our relatively short existence as civilised man. 
Besides the more physical manifestations, other functions of 
the psyche such as thinking, feeling, intuition, or sensation, 
may be repressed with corresponding loss. We cannot cut off 
anything that is vital in any direction without the risk of 
becoming prey to unconscious thoughts and feelings, which, 
because repressed, intrude into consciousness as imperative 
ideas, compulsive acts, obsessions, morbid imaginations and 
subjective sensations. 

I do not subscribe to the idea that the unconscious is 
composed only of repressed material of a sexual nature, al- 
though the snbject under consideration demands that we 
dwell primarily upon that component. The unconscious is 
rather to be regarded as the foundation and origin of all 
things. It is the non-rational underlying and interpene- 
trating the rational, and contains the impressions which are 
compensatory to consciousness. 

It is this compensatory and non-rational contribution that 
makes the unconscious mind the most important factor in the 
sex problem. The problems lie far less in the concrete 
realities of sex than in what we think or feel or imagine about 
it. Our thoughts and feelings are constantly made and 
betrayed by the compelling power of the phantasies, which 

10 



146 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

are dynamic in character, and have an insistent tendency to 
push their way into consciousness. 

Charles Lamb expressed this idea in another connection. 
He says of himself that he was " dreadfully alive to nervous 
terrors," * and spoke of the great impression a picture in 
Stackkouse's Bible of the Witch of Endor raising Samuel 
had made upon him ; but he adds : " Had I never met with the 
picture, the fears would have come self-pictured in some shape 
or other : ' Headless bear, black man, or ape ' — but as it was my 
imaginations took that form." 

He goes on to say, " It is not book or picture, or the stories 
of foolish servants, which create these terrors in children. 
They can at most but give them a direction. Dear little 
T. H., who of all children has been brought up with the most 
scrupulous exclusion of every taint of superstition — who was 
never allowed to hear of a goblin or apparition, or scarcely to 
be told of bad men, or to read or hear of any distressing story, 
finds all this world of fear, from which he has been so rigidly 
excluded ab extra, in his own " thick coming fancies " ; and 
from his little midnight pillow, this nurse child of optimism 
will start at shapes, unborrowed of tradition, in sweats to 
which the reveries of the all-damned murderer are tranquility. 

"Gorgons and Hydras, and Chimeras dire — stories of 
Celaeno and the Harpies — may reproduce themselves in the 
brain of superstition — but tliey are there before. They are 
transcripts — types — the archetypes are in us and eternal. . . . 

" The kind of fear here treated is purely spiritual, that it 
is strong in proportion as it is objectless upon earth — that it 
predominates in the period of sinless infancy — are difficulties, 
the solution of which might afford some probable insight into 
our ante-mundane condition, and a peep at least into the 
shadowland of pre-existence." 

Charles Lamb, as we know, was extremely sensitive and 
neurotic, and was subject to " intrusions into consciousness of 
the psychological function of intuition in the form of 'images.' " 2 
He speaks of the archetypes of phantasy lying in the 

1 " Essays of Elia " : " Witches and other Night Fears." 

2 Jung, British Journal of Psychology, November, 1919. 



UXCCLVSCTOUS FACTOES IX SEX-EDUCATIOU 147 

hinterland of the mind. Jung has recently described the 
collective unconscious as composed of ; *' the ram of the in- 
stincts and their correlates the archetypes," ' that is, the 
instinct-forms of thought. 

It is largely the presence of the archetypal ideas or 
" instinct forms " that makes the sex phantasies of the child 
so abundant, and his sex education so uncertain in its results. 
The material of fear is already in the mind. He adds or 
detracts from all the teacher says, whether the teacher is 
parent or pedagogue. The energic value of sex curiosity is 
such that the child must either get to know, or determine 
fiercely not to know about it. Curiosity is capable of the 
severest repression The overweeningly curious child may at 
the critical moment violently repress into the unconscious 
his longing for knowledge. This results in an exaggerated 
attitude of innocence or prudery, which may be all that sur- 
vives in consciousness to indicate the violence that has been 
done to a natural instinct. As a matter of fact, the young 
child rarely comes to an adult for answers to the seething 
questions about sex. Is not this largely our own fault ? 

What is it that disturbs the grown-ups so much when, in 
the pre-self-conscious age, the child blurts out some innocent 
question in mixed company? It cannot be the facts of aex, 
which are more or less known to all the adults present. What 
makes one person blush, another cough, another become pre- 
occupied, another draw a red herring across the track of the 
question? Something in the unconscious has been touched 
up — connected with the sexual phanta.?:e= :■: each adult — wh: ?e 
personal emotions tend to complicate the answer. The child 
looking from one to another gains an impression of he kn:~i 
not what. This sets going his sexual phantasies, always easily 
stimulated into activity, especially where a block is interposed 
on the path to direct knowledge. 

Sexual phantasies are neither evil nor useless in themselves. 
They are essential and inevitable. They become destructive 
only when after having fulfilled their purpose they are stabi- 
lised and fixed ; or when they are used in mature life as a 
means of i: flight from reality." But in the case of the child 



i4S PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

the utility of the phantasies is clear. Even should we tell 
him the literal truth it vrill not be accepted as such. It is 
always re-interpreted into fictitious terms, and becomes 
something the child can think. 

On one occasion when I was putting a small relative to 
bed a question arose as to how the baby came. I told her 
as best I could about the baby being nourished and developed 
in the mother's body. Her eyes sparkled and all her dimples 
appeared as she said : " Then if I die before I grow up, will 
the little baby go back to G-od inside me, and won't it ever 
get born ? " She wasn't even concerned to get an answer to 
her question ; her imagination bolted with an idea that 
delighted her ; already it seemed she had a little child inside 
her, and it would be born some day. She did not want to 
know anything more just then. She turned her head and 
settled to sleep. 

She had obtained a false impression and my words imme- 
diately evoked a phantasy in her mind. Such experiences 
show us that when we talk of sex education we must take 
into account the irrational factor. If we forget this we shall 
find that " the best laid schemes of mice and men gang oft 
agley." TTe mean so well, but the child's imagination baffles 
us every time, even if we ourselves are perfectly clear in our 
own minds. "When we give an explanation we sometimes 
produce a new error, which we perhaps attempt to straighten 
out. In so doing we may do wrong because we force the 
child's mind to accept some fact in a form it cannot yet 
assimilate. 

It is impossible to indicate all the difficulties that beset 
the childish mind, but I will give examples illustrating a 
special cause of misunderstanding. Some children have, 
psychologically speaking, a complete confusion of sex. It 
exists without any corresponding anatomical irregularities, 
but these children have no feelings which pronounce them as 
specifically male or female ; or, being male, female feelings 
preponderate, and race versa. 

The following account is written by 3Iiss T. I will give it 
in her own words. She is now thirty-six. 



UNCONSCIOUS FACTOES IN SEX-EDUCATION 149 

"By the time I was eight years old there were three 
younger children, a sister and two brothers. I remember 
saying to my little brother that I did not believe I was a girl 
at all, and that it was a mistake. 

" Somewhere about this time my aunts and uncles began 
to criticise me and said I was a rough, rude child and a tom- 
boy. My parents were mortified, and tried to correct me. 
They sent me to a day-school. They tried to make me learn 
to sew, but I would not. They tried to make me more clean 
and tidy. I hated the confinement and chill of my clothes, 
and used to try to put on my brothers' clothes. I liked very 
old clothes and detested fine and smart ones, and would not 
put on some that were bought for me. I resisted my parents 
and my nurses. The more they talked of my being a girl, 
the less I believed I was one, because nothing they said 
seemed true of myself. 

" When I went to school, when I was about nine, I never 
played with girls if I could get boys to play with me. 

" I tried to reason about myself, and about why I was so 
miserable, but I always said that I was not going to grow up 
in the way people wanted me to do. I thought all grown 
people told lies, and that they could not possibly believe 
themselves the things they expected me to believe. I thought 
that when I was old enough I would find a way to escape. 

" From nine years old till twelve, in all my spare time, I 
ran wild, I never came indoors if I could help it. I associated 
with gardeners, navvies, workmen wherever I could find them. 
I learnt to use their tools. I was always laughed at by my 
parents when I tried to do things, but never by these working- 
men, who were always kind to me. 

" I had tremendous energy. I learnt nothing at school, 
but I devised outdoor adventures of all kinds, and always had 
a crowd of boys and girls willing to come and play. We built 
castles, and stormed forts, and so on. All these games were 
based on the imaginings of the few preceding years. 

" When I was between six and eight years old, I made my 
father read to me. Every evening I lay in his arms in a big 
armchair, and followed the stories he read aloud. These were 



150 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

" Arabian Nights,'' fairy tales, " Ingoldsby Legends," and so on. 
He always fell asleep before I had had enough. During those 
few years I liked rny father, and he fed my imagination and 
did not scold me. Between eight and twelve I abandoned the 
fairy tales and began to live them out of doors. 

"Besides this kind of play, I began to keep animals. I 
caught pigeons, and kept a lot of them. I also had other 
animals, and spent all I had on them. My two young brothers 
helped me. We understood by observation about mating the 
animals, and about reproduction. We neyer discussed the 
subject with grown people. We were devoted to our animals, 
we took pleasure in the creation of numerous young families. 
We never spoke of sex in reference to human beings. I don't 
think we thought of it. I kept away from grown-up people 
as much as I could. 

" When I was about twelve, my boy friends disappeared to 
other schools, and I was rather lonely. I used to stay out 
of doors, and tried to make up a kind of continuous story. 
It was based on the old fairy tales — of knights, dragons, 
princesses, and so on. I was never the princess, but always 
the knight or pirate, or backwoodsman. More and more I 
became like the man in the story, and felt like him, and 
believed I was he. 

" My night dreams were of just the same things. No one 
taught me anything, and I was intimate with no one except 
ignorant, uneducated people. But I began to feel admiration 
for a few especially good-looking men and women, though I 
never tried to make friends of them. 

"For about two years people went on criticising me. I 
regarded my mother as an enemy. She repeatedly threatened 
to send me to a boarding-school, to punish and shape me. As 
the school was in beautiful country, I thought I might like 
it. But I had a bedroom to myself at home, and I heard I 
should have to sleep with other girls. I hated the idea 
because I was very shy with girls. I was not shy with boys. 
When the time drew near, I went in tears to my father and 
implored him not to send me. I said if he would have me 
taught the useful things that boys learnt I would work hard 



UNCONSCIOUS PACTOBS IX SEX-EDUCaTIOX 151 

and, by and by, would earn my own living. I said I couldn't 
and wouldn't be turned into the kind of young lady my half- 
sister was. 

•'• My father was moved by my tears, but my mother came 
in and sent me out of the room, and I was sent to school at 
thirteen and a half. I settled down into a state of hard 
defiance, and went away very angry and bitter, but without 
any more tears. 

" Before I went away, my mother told me about menstrua- 
tion. I connected it at once with animal reproduction. I 
thought the animals mated voluntarily when the female chose, 
and as I felt I should not choose to do so at all, I said, ' Oh, 
well — that won't happen to me.' When it did, it made no 
change in my point of view. 

"' Before I was sent to school, and after I got there, I 
brooded continually about running away from home and 
school, but I could not see how I could escape being caught, 
or how I could live. 

"' At school mv first feeling was not asrainst the mistresses, 
who seemed kind ; it was against the girls, and I felt a dread- 
ful physical disgust for the place. This was so bad that 
the slightest odour, such as of dinner, or boot- blacking, or 
soap, gave me a feeling of nausea. I also got a feeling of 
nausea when I had to sit very close to other girls. The whole 
thing was a physical shock for me and it took about a year to 
get over it. I think of my life at that time as nothing short 
of an illness. 

" In my first year at school I continually dreamt of travel- 
ling and living as a man, and it was perhaps the time of worst 
confusion that I had. In my dreams I seemed to get back 
into a real world, ily life at school seemed to be all acting, 
and only in dreani3 and in story books did I seem to live my 
real life and see the world in a real way.'' 

I need not comment on this case — it speaks for itself — 
save perhaps just to say that a child who is permanently in 
such a state of disbelief in regard to all she is told, is in a 
completely wrong attitude to life. She could not believe the 
elders because she had, without knowing it, given a greater 



152 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

value to the images in her own mind than to the facts of the 
objective world. 

The next example is somewhat different. A nice-looking, 
well-grown girl of fourteen and a half, was brought to me 
because she was supposed to have a mania for boys. She 
picked them up on the way to her day-school, and when as a 
preventive measure she was sent to boarding-school, she found 
means of making assignations with boys and, escaping from 
captivity, went roaming with her young friends. Another 
indictment against her was that the boys were of an inferior 
class. She was the Squire's daughter, and would consort with 
sons of tradesmen. 

Her father brought her to me in great distress; he was especi- 
ally anxious because a maternal aunt was saidtohave erotomania. 
What was to be done with such a rebellious daughter, in whom 
plenty of lesser naughtiness accompanied the graver faults ? 

The analysis of a single dream showed her unconscious 
confusion of sex. She felt like a boy in most respects, she 
loved all their games and sports. Her collection of stamps 
and her breeding of rabbits was quite excellent. She showed 
no interest in boys as lovers, and was irritated and nonplussed 
when a sentimental rivalry momentarily arose between two of 
them for a kiss. She loathed girls and called them sneaks. 
She declared she was always shocking them. It soon became 
clear that her love for boys was a longing for their companion- 
ship because she felt more at home among them. It was not 
a wish for flirtation. This once understood, the problem had 
to be differently met. An immediate change was made in 
her external life. She was taken from school and given work 
to do that gave scope to her qualities and brought her amongst 
boys in a natural way. 

She was also helped to see what was at work in herself, 
that she must accept her feminine sex if she wanted to get 
through life decently. She could develop her talents in work 
that fitted her psychology, work that could just as well be a 
woman's as a man's. She must learn to satisfy her male 
tendencies in creative work, and take up open and responsible 
friendships with boys, while conforming as far as possible with 



UNCONSCIOUS FACTORS IX SEX-EDUCATION 153 

outward requirements. The new plan worked, and two years 
later she went back voluntarily to the girls' school into which 
she was now ready to fit. 

If the real significance of these cases is appreciated, it 
will lead us to further realisation of the curious and un- 
expected material we have to deal with in any mass of 
children. To children thus orientated the instructor is ap- 
parently "talking through his hat." Such children represent 
many who do not correspond with the so-called normal. Yet 
it is exactly these children who will experience the greatest 
difficulties in later life, and who most need our understanding 
help. For such natures one needs an individual key. The 
general key is useless or breaks the lock. And yet what an 
amount of insight and study is needed before we know how 
to apply these individual keys. Of course we cannot discuss 
individual difficulties in class, but a certain amount of class 
instruction opens the way for these children to consult the 
teacher, and then sometimes a word can be spoken in private 
to one scholar or another that will remove mountains of 
difficulty, and provide a clear channel through which the 
pent-up emotion may flow. 

In children with sex difficulties the wisest course is to 
refrain as much as possible from punishment and criticism. 
The naughtiness and resistance often disappear when we drive 
them with a loose rein and cease to impose ideas of what is 
normal and conventional. The child is invariably depreciated 
by whatever in himself is unlike others. He needs more self- 
respect, not less. A stolid or aggressive manner often conceals 
the greatest wavering and timidity. It is an over-compensa- 
tion for a sense of deficiency. 

Let U3 take an example of this mechanism of over- 
compensation from another sphere. In many solvent 
countries at the present time the exchange has moved against 
the British Empire. Eecent figures of the Board of Trade 
returns showed an enormous falling off in exports. Numerous 
indications might suggest we are losing our first place in the 
markets of the world. National credit and prosperity are 
involved, and we suffer in our patriotic feelings. These facts 



154 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

as far as they go are extremely painful ; we foresee a loss of 
power and prestige. 

There are two ways of meeting such a situation. Either we 
may rationalise and explain away the facts, and at the same 
time compensate the disquiet and dissatisfaction we cannot alto- 
gether quell, by boasting more than usual about our conquests, 
our colonies, and our mercantile supremacy ; we may refuse 
to admit the possibility that we can lose our place in the sun. 
Or we may take it otherwise and accept the fear, the humilia- 
tion, and the sense of loss that belongs to such a situation. 
YTe may attempt to realise the position, study the causes, 
search for the remedy, seek to know what our individual share 
of the burden should be, aim at improving industry, economise 
the waste, in fact put the shoulder to the wheel. We can 
accept the position in order to change it. 

The former way is one of repression. It is accompanied 
by rationalisation, and over-coinpensated by boasting and 
empty vanity. The latter way is the way of acceptance, of 
sacrifice, and clearly the way that leads to more and fuller life. 
It is the way of sublimation. "\Ye must not confuse repression 
and sacrifice in our ideas. Any unconscious and mechanical 
sacrifice is a repression ; being human, we are unable in the 
last resort to escape sacrifice ; it is inevitable in the cause of 
adaptation. We must take care that it is consciously under- 
taken for a creative purpose, and that it is consciously borne, 
and ends as soon as it has served its purpose, never becoming 
automatic. There is no virtue in suffering for its own sake. 
In the case of the child whose naughtiness conceals a painful 
sense of guilt, punishment will either increase the necessity 
to dispose of the self-depreciation by ignoring or repressing it, 
to which end he may become more conceited and defiant than 
ever ; or, on the other hand, punishment may lead him to 
succumb to a crushing self-disparagement. Either alternative 
is a failure from the educational standpoint. The chance to 
help him with sympathy and understanding has been missed, 
as well as the opportunity to lead out his libido to a more 
appropriate expression, through the sacrifice of its undesirable 
pleasure trends. 



UNCONSCIOUS FACTOKS IN SEX-EDUCATION 155 

But before the teacher can hope to help the child to solve 
his problems, he must have recognised and dealt with his 
own. Before we get very far we find we have been cherishing 
(as if they were virtues) habits of thought, and ways of 
feeling, that have prevented development. It is essential to 
sacrifice the childish personality in ourselves ; either in its 
uncritical dependence, or its uncritical revolt. We have first 
to become aware of the existence of what is childish, for it is 
not necessarily obvious in the outward behaviour, except upon 
rare occasions. 

Childish phantasies are natural in the child ; it is natural, 
too, that he should be dependent upon others during his long 
immaturity. But childish phantasies in the adult have a 
morbid significance. They blind him to reality and so 
constrict the personality. The mechanism by which they 
are maintained is by relegation to the unconscious. We 
have to work hard to discover them in ourselves. When 
we have found them, and understood their meaning, they 
provide a clue to what is missing from our conscious 
attitude. 

There is one specific direction in which we may profitably 
work. The commonest and the most obvious unconscious 
phantasies are about our parents. A certain unconscious orienta- 
tion to the parents is present in everybody. I fancy I hear some 
one say, " My father was never any particular law to me — I did 
not specially love or fear him." Or, "though I feared and 
obeyed or loved my father as a child he is now dead and has 
long since ceased to influence me." To such objectors we 
might say, " Leave off thinking for the time being of your actual 
parents and take a psychological view. Think of the image 
of the ' ideal ' father, the ' head of the house,' the ' shepherd 
of his flock,' the ' tyrant of the hearth,' and so on. Are you 
sure no such important figure exerts undue influence in your 
life? Is there no one to whom you refer most things in 
phantasy if not in fact ? Do you delegate no authority that 
should be yours ? Are you self-governing ? Again, in reference 
to your mother : Do you not look to find an understanding 
mother in your wife, your head-mistress, your religion, your 



156 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

best friend, in fact in all those in emotional relations with you ? 
Does no infant in you cry for a tender uncritical love from 
others ? Does the bond that is outwardly severed not operate 
in you unconsciously ? " This is a psychological meaning of 
the " incest phantasies " in which the individual is never 
essentially separated from his parents. 

The getting free from the parents has an effect of twofold 
value. The problems are pretty equally distributed on either 
side of the dividing line between parents and children. A 
time arrives when they must naturally separate themselves ; 
when this happens they can also for the first time see one 
another as independent beings. Losing their projections and 
identifications, which are congenital and collective, they 
arrive at an independence that allows them the possibility 
of a just judgment. 

The new attitude is effective in proportion to the inner 
freedom of either party, but it is an obvious fact that the 
inner and outer freedom by no means always progress pari 
passu. 

Liberation of the personality is the result of conscious 
conflict which would be stupid and useless if it did not lead 
to the acquisition of new values. One can scarcely lay too 
much stress upon this particular problem. There is a unity 
in the emotional life which led Freud to include all forms of 
love under the term sexuality. Although the child's emotional 
life is not sexual in the adult and concrete manner, it forms 
a prototype for all the subsequent psychic content of the love 
life. The attitude to the parents forecasts the future un- 
conscious attitude of the adult, and, be it one of servitude or 
rebellion, it must undergo change. A child who never 
submits to authority, who is disobedient, unloving and un- 
disciplined, has great difficulty in finding a teacher, lover, or 
friend, and a marriage, an occupation, or school of thought to 
which he can give the necessary and prolonged allegiance. 
It is a fascinating, if baffling thought, that we can begin the 
study of the child's psychology by turning a searchlight into 
the neglected recesses of our own minds. - 

After the recital of the difficulties attendant upon sex 



UNCONSCIOUS FACTORS IN SEX-EDUCATION 157 

education, one naturally wants to know how and when the 
teaching may be given with advantage. 

It is very desirable that sex instruction should be given 
in all training colleges and universities. There is need of 
more education in medical schools, in order that future 
parents and teachers and doctors may be enabled to handle 
the subject wisely as it comes up in the home, or school, or 
clientele. 1 

Opinions in matters of sex are undergoing great changes, 
and what is needed is an intelligent, trained leadership. At 
present the majority of teachers are not competent to give 
indiscriminate sex instruction, and parents are also much 
behind-hand. In fact, sex education ought to begin with the 
present generation of teachers and parents. 

This should not, however, prevent us from answering any 
question a child puts' to us, as truly as possible. We must 
note what the child does, and how he interprets our words. 
Where we find fear associated with the subject we should 
seek to remove it, but we need not trouble if the child's idea 
is inexact as long as it serves him as a working hypothesis 
which allows him to make progress in his human relations. 
We should not laugh at his mistakes or his phantasies, but 
try to get into direct contact with his emotional processes, 
and keep a critical eye upon our own accustomed formulas of 
sex. We want to keep a path open between us and the child. 
We often get new problems ourselves from the mouths of 
babes and sucklings. 

Direct sex teaching in classes of small children rarely 
works, but whenever it comes up in the curriculum, as it does 
in history, scripture, botany, etc., let us teach it "in our 
stride." It does no harm to know that the Reformation turned 
on the love affair of a king, or that David had a human 
problem of lust and envy. The out-of-school care of animals 
is useful, as we saw in the case of Elsie T. Although human 
beings failed to teach and convince her, she learnt a great deal 
from the pastime of breeding rabbits and guinea pigs. She 

1 This idea was embodied in a resolution passed at the International Con- 
ference of Women Physicians, jSew York City, 1919. 



158 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

gained an amount of information that was evidently absent in 
the childhood of Dr. Ethel Smyth, 1 who tells us in her auto- 
biography of an agonising memory in early life. She writes : 

" When I was about eleven, one awful day, after overhear- 
ing scraps of a conversation, or perhaps enlightened in a flash 
by a line of poetry, I suddenly gathered that having babies 
and embracing were mysteriously connected ; and despair fell 
upon me, for shortly before I had, without enthusiasm, allowed 
a boy I rather hated to kiss me in the rosery ! Like every 
child in a large family I was aware you could not tell for 
a long time if a baby was on the way or not, and for two or 
three months I would surreptitiously examine my figure in 
the glass and fancy the worst ! What agonising suspense of 
after years can compare with that of a child thus tortured, 
unable to confide in any one, and wondering as I did, should 
the dreaded thing happen, whether I would drown myself in 
the deep water near the lock, or lay my head on the rails — 
perhaps in the tunnel, where people would think it had been 
an accident ! " 

We must not be too shocked when children do much 
naughtier things than exchanging kisses. A teacher in an 
elementary school told me that at one time there was an 
epidemic among her scholars of masturbation, and of scribbling 
indecent things upon the walls of the school. She had noticed 
this going on, but felt unable to tackle it. 

One day she had fallen into an absent-minded state and 
suddenly looking up from her desk she noticed several of 
the children employing their hands wrongly. She became 
suddenly overwhelmed and put her head on her desk and 
cried bitterly. Now we know this was a weak and stupid 
thing to do. She knew it too. The poor sensitive young 
teacher had become identified with the collective guilt of her 
class. Hence she was helpless. She became neurotic and 
useless — and why? Because in her own life she had an 
unsolved sex problem, though of a different kind from the one 
manifested in the class. It was a liaison with a married man, 
a common problem in which she drifted helplessly. When her 
1 "Impressions that Remained," vol. i. p. 84. 



UNCONSCIOUS FACTORS IX SEX-EDUCATION 159 

scholars presented her with a concrete difficulty, she had no 
standpoint of her ovm from which to tackle it. She was 
betrayed from within. She became a nervous invalid, and the 
problem was temporarily evaded by being transferred from 
the physical to the psychical sphere. 

There is a prodigious outcry to-day that we must educate, 
educate, educate, not only children but the general public on 
matters of sex. Every one is saying (rather evasively, I 
think) that it is the teacher's duty. However, do not let us 
be hustled. The evils which have gone on so lon^ will not 
be improved unless we prepare ourselves to attack them in a 
more understanding way. 

It is in order to promote some unification in the factors of 
the sex life that we should devote ourselves to the study of 
unconscious phenomena so that we may take them into our 
calculations in reviewing the whole problem from childhood on. 



IX 

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PHANTASY IN THE PRO- 
DUCTION OF THE PSYCHONEUROSES 1 

For the first time in the history of medicine, we are in a 
favourable position to understand the problems of the neurotic. 
The work of the last fifty years on functional diseases, culmi- 
nating in the psychoanalytic theories, has brought to light the 
fact of the continuity of the mental life. 

The links missing from consciousness are to be found in the 
unconscious mind, where everything that has taken part in 
our experience continues to exist, and exert an influence for 
good or ill upon the present. 

Although the function of the unconscious mind is com- 
pensatory to consciousness, it none the less contains elements 
which are irrational and primitive, and which are incompatible 
with those of the cultured, rational mind of the highly- 
developed personality. 

This twofold character of the mind provides the elements 
for mental conflict and dissociation. When the conscious 
aims conflict with the unconscious tendencies to such a degree 
as to interfere with an individual's capacity to adapt more or 
less well to the demands of life, a neurosis may supervene. 
The symptoms of neurosis are compromise-formations, which 
in Freud's view represent the unconscious gratification of a 
repressed wish of an infantile and erotic character. 

Freud has divided neurosis into the Actual, and the 
Psychoneuroses. 2 

Briefly stated, the Actual Neurosis is one in which the 
causation is in the present, and lies in the sexual life; the 

1 Bead at a meeting of the London Branch of the Federation of Medical 
Women, 1919. 

2 See Dr. Ernest Jones in " Nervous and Mental Diseases." 

160 



PRODUCTION OF THE PSYCHONEUROSES 161 

pathogenic agents are operative at the time the symptoms 
present themselves, and are predominantly physical. Whereas 
the Psychoneuroses have a predominantly mental basis, the 
causation is in the past and lies in the experiences and 
phantasies of childhood. 

In practice there is no clear line of demarcation between 
the two groups. It is merely a question of accent. In every 
case we should look for the causation both in the present and 
in the past. In the actual neuroses a change in the habits of 
the sexual life, and the application of suitable medical measures 
may be sufficient to bring about a cure ; but with the psycho- 
neuroses the etiological factors are completely unconscious 
until revealed by analysis, and require psychological treatment. 

The use of the psycho-analytic method is still relatively 
new, and is far from being generally understood by the bulk 
of consulting physicians or general practitioners. However, 
all have gone so far as to admit that, in spite of our best 
efforts, there is a large residue of nervous patients whom we 
have hitherto failed to cure, and we do not know why we 
failed. It is useless to stigmatise them as malades imaginaires. 
Though the blame is put upon the patient in this way the 
doctor is not absolved. Where we cannot effect a cure our 
interest is apt to flag ; we even become a little annoyed, and 
we believe our patient to be " stupid " or " obstinate " or 
" hopeless." Is not this a projection of our own uninformed 
attitude on to the patient? Till fairly recently we knew 
little about "motor areas" and "nerve tracts" in the brain. 
Even now a great number of the patients who die in asylums 
show no brain changes recognisable by our present means of 
investigation. Therefore it behoves us to be humble about 
the disorders we call " functional," and recognise we have still 
much to learn about the working of the mind. 

Speaking generally, it was the absence of organic lesions 
that underlay the contempt in which the neurotic was formerly 
held ; a contempt as falsely founded as that which led our 
forefathers to believe insane persons to be the wicked subjects 
of demoniacal possession. In a recent text-book dealing with 
the psychoses (viz. manic-depressive insanity, paranoia, 

11 



162 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

dementia precox, and paraphrenia), Stoddart says, " Like the 
neuroses arjd psycho-neuroses they have no morbid anatomy, and 
their basis is supposed to be purely psychical." l 

It were perhaps well to review very briefly the stages 
through which psycho-therapy has passed in the last fifty 
years. 

Charcot's demonstrations of hypnotism, and his association 
of the hypnotic states with hysteria, introduced new ideas 
which gave a psychological basis to the conception of hysteria, 
and were the beginning of a scientific study of the disease. 
He showed that the symptoms were built upon fixed ideas 
which both originated the symptoms and kept them going, 
and which could be reproduced in the hypnotic state. Charcot 
did not use hypnotism therapeutically, rather he may be said 
to have exploited the hysteric in his impressive demonstrations. 
Dr. Liebeault of Nancy was the originator of the modern 
treatment by hypnotism. His work, which was prior to 
Charcot's, passed almost unnoticed by the scientific public. 
His undoubted cures aroused as much resistance as admiration, 
and scientific men began to ask what hypnotism really was. 
Failing to find an answer in the usual channels, they referred 
the method again to the sphere of magic, until Bernheim 
produced his book, " De la Suggestion et des applications 
a la Therapeutique," which gave the subject a new start. 
But as Lloyd Tuckey says, " The lesson the study of mental 
suggestion teaches is not that disease is imaginary, but 
that the imagination has a powerful influence over its mani- 
festations." 2 There is indeed in hypnotism much to puzzle 
the thoughtful, for the remedy is as mysterious as the disease 
it is curing. Why is it so uncertain? Why does it some- 
times cure the symptoms and sometimes not ? Why are some 
people hypnotisable and others not? When we have hypnotised 
our patients what have we done to them after all ? Why can 
the subconscious mind apparently bring about cures which the 
conscious mind cannot influence, and so forth ? 

1 " Mind and its Disorders," p. 253. Lewis & Co., Ltd., 1919. 

2 " Hypnotism and Suggestion," Bailliere, Tindall & Cox, Sixth Edition, 
p. 37. 



PKODUCTIOX OF THE PSYCHOXEUROSES 163 

Analytic researches have thrown much light on the 
character of the hypnotic cure. 1 We now know that hypnosis 
belongs to the phenomena of the unconscious, and that it 
cannot be called a scientific method in itself. Its effects are 
obtained by the transference of the unconscious affects of the 
patient to the physician. Through the use of hypnotism we 
have arrived at an idea that is really scientific, viz. that it is 
essential to differentiate between psychical and physical 
factors in etiology, and that the remedy for psychic disease 
must proceed along psychic lines. 

Whilst Charcot was carrying on his demonstrations in 
Paris, another important discovery was made quite inde- 
pendently about 1880 by an Austrian physician, Dr. Joseph 
Breuer. He had under his care a very intelligent girl of 
twenty-one who was suffering from physical and mental dis- 
turbances. She had paralysis and anaesthesia of the right arm 
and leg, disturbances of eye movements, impairment of vision, 
tussis nervosa, nausea whenever she tried to eat, and at one 
time she refused to drink in spite of tormenting thirst. She 
had systematic aphasia — that is, her power of speech was 
disturbed ; she was unable to speak her mother-tongue 
(German), and could only express herself in English. She 
finally developed twilight states, with confusion, and changes 
of character. In her twilight states she would mutter words, 
and recount phantasies or day-dreams. Breuer saw that 
alterations of mood resulted from these fancies, and that the 
emotions attached to them were of deep significance for her 
illness. Whenever the patient had poured out these phan- 
tasies, and the memories that sprang up with them, her 
condition improved for some hours. Breuer began to make 
systematic use of this catharsis, which the girl called the 
"chimney-sweeping cure." This was the first time that a 
connection between dreams and hysterical symptoms was 
therapeutically established, and it was the beginning of the 

1 For the historical account of the beginnings of hypnotism see " Treat- 
ment by Hypnotism and Suggestion," Dr. Lloyd Tuckey ; " Introduction to 
the Study of Hypnotism," E. H. Wingfield. For its relation to Psychoanalysis, 
see " Contributions to Psychoanalysis," Ferenczi, chap, ii., and Freud's 
" Clark University Lecture," 1910. " Analytical Psychology," Jung, chap, ix. 



164 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

development of the modern psychological theories of hysteria. 
When Breuer made this original analysis, Freud was a senior 
student; but when, a few years later, he began to follow 
Bieuer's methods in the treatment of his own cases, he found 
his experiences entirely coincided with those of his chief. 
These observers were led to the confirmation of Charcot's 
trauma theory. With the aid of hypnotism an effort was made 
to re-awaken the memory of the incidents and feelings which 
were present when the first hysterical symptoms appeared. It 
was found that emotions of fear, shame, and anxiety were 
invariably present, and it was further noted that any experience 
that could rouse these affects could act as a psychic trauma. 
Where the special memories had been related, the observers 
found, to their great surprise, * that the individual hysterical 
symptoms immediately disappeared, and did not return if they 
succeeded in thoroughly awakening the memories of the 
causal process, with its accompanying affect, and if the patient 
circumstantially discussed the process, giving free play to the 
affect." l (Abreaction.) 

Charcot had designated hypnotism as " artificial hysteria." 
Freud now observed that the presence of states of reverie 
(hypnoid states) was the determining basis of hysteria. In 
the course of treatment he found that not all his patients were 
hypnotisable, but he continued to press them for information 
which they were quite unconscious of possessing. When he 
had reached a point where they declared they knew nothing 
more, he writes, " I would assure them that they did know, 
that they must speak out. I would venture the assertion that 
the memory which would emerge at the moment that I laid 
my hand on the patient's forehead would be the right one. In 
this way I succeeded in learning without hypnosis all that was 
necessary." 2 Freud did not give up the use of hypnotism, 
however, until he had succeeded in substantiating the fact 
that " forgotten memories were not lost . . . they were ready 
to emerge . . . but hindered from becoming conscious by 
some sort of force . . . one could get an idea of this force 

1 " Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses," Freud, p. 4. 
2 " Origin and Development of Psycho-analysis," Freud. 



PRODUCTION OF THE PSYCHOXEUROSES 165 

which maintained the pathological situation from the resist- 
ance of the patient. . . . It is on this idea of resistance that I 
base my theory of the psychic processes of hystericals." Hypno- 
tism was now seen to have covered up resistances; whereas 
the analytical work proceeded by overcoming the resistances ; 
because these forces which "opposed the emergence into 
consciousness of the forgotten ideas must themselves have 
caused the forgetting, and repressed the pathogenic ex- 
periences from consciousness." This process was called 
" repression " ; its presence was considered proved by the 
existence of the resistance. Freud conceived that the strength 
of the repressive force lay in the fact that a wish had been 
involuntarily aroused which was " in sharp opposition to 
the other desires of the individual, and was not capable of 
being reconciled with the ethical, aesthetic, and personal pre- 
tensions of the patient's personality." This wish then formed 
the unbearable idea which was the basis of the unconscious 
mental conflict. The conflict arose because, on the one hand, 
the conscious was striving to drag up the unbearable idea, and, 
on the other, the unconscious was resisting this tendency. 
The neurotic symptoms and obsessive thoughts were surrogates 
(compromise-formations) for the unbearable idea with which 
they were unconsciously linked. 

Freud no longer attached any etiological importance to the 
sexual trauma ; nor did he find the cure of the neurosis lay in 
abreaction. He came to regard the infantile sexual phantasies 
as the pathogenic agents, tracing them back to early sexual 
activities, and to find the predisposition in a fixation of libido 
(here " sexual hunger ") on one or other parent, forming the 
complex characterised as the (Edipus or Electra complex. 

The characteristic moment of hysteria for Freud does 
not lie in the " weakening of the faculty of psychological 
synthesis," upon which Pierre Janet has laid so much stress. 1 
Janet speaks of a " psychological insufficiency," and regards 
the hysteric as the victim of heredity and degeneration. He 
finds a congenital tendency to dissociation, a relative weakness 
in synthesis. But, as Freud has pointed out, one can observe 

1 " The Mental State of Hystericals." Putnams, New York and London. 



166 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

" besides the phenomena of lessened functioning, examples of 
partial increase of functional capacity as a sort of compensa- 
tion." 1 In support of this, he quotes Breuer's patient to 
■whom I hare previously referred. She had " forgotten her 
mother tongue and all languages save English, but if a 
German book was put before her she could give a perfect 
translation of its contents at sight." 2 

In Freud's conception, therefore, the symptoms are brought 
about as a defence against the unbearable idea, and are due to 
a conversion of psychical energy into physical innervation. 
If by forcible repression the idea can be treated as "non 
arrivee," the sum of excitement may be transferred to the 
somatic sphere — producing a paralysis or pain, for example — 
or to an idea, producing a phobia or obsession. 

Adler 3 has also contributed ideas that are of value to the 
problem of neurosis. He regards the symptoms as an un- 
conscious compensation for a definite organ inferiority. They 
represent a striving for power, and a safeguarding of the ego 
by a " masculine protest," by means of which the individual 
in question is always above, i.e. in a position of fictitious 
superiority. The symptoms are the result of the "fictions 
directrices " ; and by the attention they attract, and the 
arrangements they provide, add an importance to the person- 
ality which would otherwise be lacking. 

Jung, like Freud, also attributes neurosis to repression. 
He does not, however, base its whole etiology on sexual 
repression, nor on a safeguarding of the ego (Adler) ; but on 
a one-sided development of the predominating psychological 

1 " Origin and Development of Psycho-analysis." Clark Lecture, 1909. 

* " There are certain acquisitions as well as losses of faculty," says F. W. 
Myers. Joan of Arc and St. Francis of Assisi both gained values to their 
personalities from their secondary states. Weir Mitchell's case, of Mary 
Reynolds, passed into a second state in which her character was completely 
changed from melancholy to cheerfulness, from reserve to sociability, and from 
being timid she became brave and adventurous. In sleep-walking somnambu- 
lists perform feats that are impossible in waking consciousness. 

3 "The Neurotic Constitution," Adler. Moffat, Yard & Co. Babinski's 
definition that " Hysteria is a pathological state manifested by disorders 
which it is possible to reproduce exactly by suggestion in certain subjects, and 
which can be made to disappear by the influence of persuasion alone," adds 
nothing either to our understanding or knowledge. 



PRODUCTION OF THE PSYCHONEUKOSES 167 

function, the other functions being relatively repressed. 
Dreams, phantasies, and neurotic symptoms are regarded 
both as compromise-formations and as compensations. The 
function or functions missing from consciousness appear in a 
symbolic form. 

Jung has also introduced a concept of the libido as 
psychic energy, which manifests itself in every function of 
body or soul. He looks for the exciting cause (the obstacle) 
of the neurosis in the present, and the predisposing cause in 
the past (the unconscious). When the libido, in the service 
of adaptation, meets with the obstacle, it tends to accumulate 
till it surmounts it ; or till it flows back into regressive 
channels, and takes up a former mode of reaction. In such 
case, the infantile sexual phantasies, and the old adaptation to 
the parents reappear, which is no longer suitable. Each 
psychological type has a characteristic way of applying the 
libido. In the extraverted type it is applied to the object 
and the objective world ; in the introverted type, to the 
subject and the idea. Whichever function is repressed 
remains under-developed, and far behind the level of the 
conscious function ; thus the conditions for an unconscious 
conflict are present. 

In this view the neurosis is not originated by the infantile 
sexual phantasies, nor by the CEdipus-complex, but is due to a 
failure to apply the stored-up libido in a suitable human way, 
whereby the infantile sexual phantasies, and the parent imago 
become " puffed up by the regressed libido, which has not 
found its natural outlet into a new form of adjustment to 
life. . . . The psychological trouble in neurosis, and neurosis 
itself, can be considered as an act of adaptation that has 
failed." 1 

These, and many others, are current views of the etiology 
of neurosis. Each has its special value. We cannot exclude 
heredity, nor organ inferiority, nor congenital weakness of 
synthesis, nor degeneration. We cannot deny the compensa- 
tory character of the neurosis, or fail to see that sensationalism 
adds importance to some temperaments. There are, however, 

1 ''Analytical Psychology," p. 231. 



168 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

certain factors which are found in every case, and upon the 
existence of which the analytic therapy is based : viz., the 
presence of systems of phantasies, and the existence of the un- 
conscious conflict. 

The most important discoveries connected with the new 
medical psychology hare been made through the study of 
dreams, because neurotic symptoms, like dreams, are the 
creation of the unconscious mind. They serve an unconscious 
purpose, and are an attempt, though a mistaken one, to find a 
solution for the unbearable idea. 

The symptoms are constructed on numerous determinants, 
and their psychological meaning is to be found in the 
phantasies that lie behind thein. The most strenuous con- 
flicts occur in relation to the development of the individual 
in opposition to the claims of the herd-life, and in respect of 
the human relations. Life demands, as Jung says, the 
" sacrifice of the infantile personality " ; the obstacles occur 
primarily where this is threatened, and it is at these moments 
that the regressive phantasies arise. There are certain typical 
themes to be found in the phantasies which merit the term 
"myths": one of the most notable among them being the 
re-birth myth. 1 In psychological analysis it is of the utmost 
importance to reveal the existence of such phantasy systems 
to the patient. The following case illustrates the presence of 
the directing phantasy. 

3Irs. P., a woman of forty-eight, complained of a feeling 
of suffocation, and a terrible sense of fear which prevented her 
from going out alone, and which for several weeks had kept 
her to her room and bed. The complaints were made in a 
weak and fretful voice, and she entreated me to " say nothing 
discouraging, as she was already full of doubts as to her 
recovery." She wept frequently throughout the early inter- 
views. She attributed her symptoms to post-influenzal weak- 
ness, which undoubtedly played some part therein. After a 
little analysis, a psychological conflict revealed itself. It 
appeared that the real " villain in the piece " was an aunt, a 

1 See Dr. Nicoll, British Journal of Psychology, 1921 (Medical Section), 
" Outline of the Idea of Rebirth in Dream;-." 



PBODUCTION OF THE PSYCHONEUKOSES 169 

woman but little older than herself, who had "been like a 
sister " to her. This lady was extremely rich, she had exercised 
great influence upon my patient in her girlhood, and they were 
once more often together. Having no children of her own, she 
lavished gifts on Mrs. P., and relied upon her for companion- 
ship. Mrs. P. declared that the aunt tried to control her 
opinions as well as her occupations. The two lived in neigh- 
bouring houses, and visits were exchanged once or twice daily. 
Mrs. P. resented this, but she said her aunt was " so kind and 
so devoted," she could not possibly hurt her by refusal. On 
the contrary, she felt compelled to carry out every wish, 
expressed or unexpressed. Her conduct to her aunt was 
amiable, but her feelings were full of resentment which she 
repressed, and for which she constantly reproached herself. 
Ultimately, the conflict became so severe that in the course of 
the last few months she broke down repeatedly in the way I 
have indicated. 

This case is typical of many where there is no external 
necessity for such a foolish adaptation. The adaptation is 
related to the unconscious rather than the conscious. The 
husband was unusually kind. Though less wealthy than her 
aunt, Mrs. P. had no lack of means to lead a pleasant and 
comfortable life. Nor could I ever gather that the aunt was 
more unreasonable or exacting than most people who have too 
much money and too little to do. The basic factor lay in 
Mrs. P.'s childish psychology. She was unequal to evading 
the problem of the aunt's domination on any basis save that of 
invalidism. She might have freed herself from the aunt by a 
quarrel, or by putting the claims of her husband first. For 
either expedient she lacked the moral courage. To rationalise 
her conduct she declared she had a Christian duty to this 
aunt, in the fulfilling of which she broke down. By her 
unconscious attitude she put herself in the power of her aunt, 
and by a re -animation of the imago of the mother, endowed 
her with the role of the " Terrible Mother," who thwarted her 
at every turn, and against whose malignant power she was 
helpless. All her feelings of fear, hatred, envy, and desire for 
superiority, were projected on to this image, which thus became 



170 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

a trap for a large quantity of her libido. Depleted of her 
energy in this way, Mrs. P. could only play the role of invalid. 
The phantasies were wish-fulfilling, because the illness brought 
about by the unconscious conflict allowed her to escape from 
her aunt and the difficulties of the external situation. 

In tracing dreams and phantasies to their source, the 
" myth " which has hitherto dominated the patient's life 
becomes uncovered. Dream analysis brings us by the shortest 
route to private and otherwise inaccessible things. What 
we must remember is that owing to the mechanism of 
repression, these things are just as inaccessible to the sufferer 
as to the physician. The method really brings to light 
material of which the patient is unconscious. Psychotherapists 
who use methods of suggestion and persuasion, do not 
necessarily arrive at the unconscious material at all. Nor is 
it merely a question of obtaining an unusually thorough 
history of the case, nor of reviving certain memories under 
hypnosis and obtaining an abreaction — that is, the working-off 
of the pent-up emotion through re-living it. Psychotherapists 
are still held by this attractive theory. 

Abreaction opens as it were the first portal of the un- 
conscious. It acts effectively up to a point. Certain re- 
sistances are broken down, there is a relief of tension as the 
emotion is gradually transferred from the unconscious of the 
patient to the physician. There is a sort of " absolution " 
experienced, a feeling of having submitted to the collective 
judgment in the person of the physician, who, in the capacity 
of judge and saviour, becomes the helper and redeemer in the 
new life of effort and the one at whose instigation a fresh 
adaptation is undertaken. Abreaction works in a crisis. It 
often allows some of the hidden values of the sufferer to 
come to realisation so that he can once more get on with 
life. In so far as it succeeds, it does so on account of a 
leading out into consciousness the sum of libido formerly 
occupied with the complex, and by restoring the complex 
itself to conscious control. This in many cases is all that we 
as physicians are permitted to do, and also in many cases 
this is all that we need to do. But do not let us be 



PKODUCTION OF THE PSYCHONEUKOSES 171 

deceived. Abreaction introduces us merely to the ante-room 
of the unconscious. We have not touched the root causes of 
the dissociation. The general system of phantasies remains 
unattacked, and indeed it is through the transference of the 
father or mother image to the physician that the dynamic 
force for the alleviation is provided. In this respect it has a 
similar therapeutic effect to hypnotism, but goes a degree 
further. In this connection I cannot forbear quoting from 
the Persian of Jami, since it shows that the value of abreaction 
was well understood by the Easterns in the fifteenth century. 
The story is called " The Afflicted Poet." 

" A poet paid a visit to a doctor and said : ' Something has 
become knotted in my heart which makes me uncomfortable ; 
it makes also my limbs wither, and causes the hairs on my 
body to stand on end.' 

" The physician, who was a shrewd man, asked : ' Very 
likely thou hast not yet recited to any one thy latest verses ? ' 
The poet replied : ' Just so.' The doctor continued : ' Then 
recite them.' He complied, was requested to repeat them, 
and again to rehearse them for a third time. 

" After he had done so, the doctor said : ' Now arise, for 
thou art saved. This poetry had become knotted in thy 
heart, and the dryness of it took effect upon the outside ; but 
as thou hast relieved thy heart, thou art cured.' " 

The analysis of every neurosis discloses a childish or 
primitive ill-adapted way of reacting. The cure depends 
on the overcoming of this unconscious infantile attitude. 
Such a state is characterised by indecision, and every new step 
is productive of more or less useless " argument." Even with 
normal people, opposing tendencies are always present in the 
mind. One of these is mainly conscious, the other mainly 
unconscious. Every idea implies its opposite, as, for example, 
sadism and masochism. The capacity to see both sides, while 
selecting one for our allegiance, gives value to our decisions. 
It has a compensatory character, softening or strengthening a 
given judgment. This balancing of one impulse by its 
opposite is called by Bleuler " ambitendency " ; the association 
of the pairs is called " ambi valency. " Normally an inner 



172 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

association of the opposites is present ; in the neurotic 
individual, however, the pairs are in a state of separation. He 
is always conscious of opposing ideas and impulses in a way 
that disturbs his conduct. No sooner does he decide upon a 
course of action, than the superiority of the rejected one 
strikes him. 

I do not want to deepen the erroneous view that the 
psycho-neurotic is an inferior person. Until recently it was 
the custom to start our medical career under this false 
impression. Practice, however, soon surprised us with the fact 
that many of the patients whose characters we had reason to 
admire were neurotic, although thev were anions: the most 
valuable members of the family and community. The hysteric is 
far from being a person of blunt moral feelings. His difficulty 
is that he feels things too much. In experiment Binet 
actually found the hysteric was fifty times more sensitive than 
the normal. Hysteria, in spite of the popular idea (and not 
a few fairly recent text-books), is not malingering. Malinger- 
ing is conscious fraud. Hysteria is an illness based on un- 
conscious phantasies, and no one is more thoroughly deceived 
than the sufferer himself. 

The following is a fairly typical case of hysteria. A woman 
of thirty-two, married (with a husband on active service), the 
mother of two boys., came to me complaining that she had 
suffered for five years from pain in her right arm. She 
carried her arm in a sling, because after using it the pain 
kept her awake at night. She had taken to writing with her 
left hand, and had given up every occupation which involved 
the use of the right arm. She had been under treatment 
throughout these five years, and had consulted eminent 
physicians and surgeons. She informed me the last surgeon 
had told her that there u were adhesions between the muscles 
of her scapular region," and advised an operation to break 
them down. She felt certain he had made a correct diagnosis, 
as he was the only one who had allowed that the symptoms 
had an organic basis. She wished to have the operation, but 
yielding to the persuasions of her relatives came to me as a 
last resource before undergoing it. I examined her present 



PRODUCTION OF THE PSYCHOXEUEOSES 173 

condition with the utmost care, with a negative result ; there- 
fore, without paying any further attention to her symptoms, 
I began an analysis. In a few weeks the symptoms sub- 
sided. The patient gradually took up her ordinary life 
again, and was soon able to drive an automobile for war 
service. 

Xot only did the pain disappear, but a number of mis- 
leading ideas that had influenced her conduct were vanquished. 
The symptoms were a phantastic defence against society and 
its demands upon herself; they were the result of an un- 
conscious mental conflict. It was to the resolution of the 
conflict that the analytic work was directed. 

The conflict lay between the psychological functions of 
thinking and feeling, or between the claims of the ego and 
the objective world. Her development was extremely one- 
sided, the extraversion tendency being relatively repressed 
and unconscious. The neurosis was precipitated by the war. 
The patient was unexpectedly confronted with the need to 
adapt to new conditions of life, in which an extraverted 
attitude was urgently needed. The husband was called away 
from home, and the sole care of the children and household 
devolved upon her. She was too conscientious to be able to 
escape from her duties, for which she felt inadequate. A 
neurosis arose which disabled her right arm, and served 
as the expression of the unconscious wish. By the time she 
reached my consulting-room she had already given up her 
house, and returned with her children to the house of her own 
parents. This makeshift solution pointed to the deepest 
roots of her conflict, which lay in her unconscious infantile 
adaptation to her parents. 

Observation of the neurosis shows us, again and again, that 
the sufferer is actuated by factors which are not to be found 
in consciousness, for " consciousness is never more than a 
small fraction of the personality" (Eibot). We may well 
ask ourselves what the unconscious mind is, since we see its 
effects so plainly in symptoms, dreams, hallucinations, altera- 
tions of mood or of personality, and so forth. What is below 
the threshold of consciousness can rise above it from time to 



174 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

time, temporarily or permanently. According to Myers, 1 
all the subliminal contents have once been in consciousness 
and sunk below the threshold. This could happen because 
they have serTed their purpose and are no longer wanted in 
consciousness — or because, owing to lack of interest, their 
associated ideas are few and unimportant. 

Freud considers that the unconscious exists as the result 
of repression, and that its function is to wish. The unconscious 
wishes are always striving for gratification, and supply the 
dynamic of the personality. The unconscious is also the 
passive receptacle of the entire memories of a lifetime. To 
quote Jones, " he regards the mental life as a continuity ; 
the appearance of discontinuity is due to the ignorance of the 
preceding conscious influences. For instance, when a person 
at twenty chooses a profession, the real reason why he reacts 
in a specific way is associated with deeper unconscious trends 
which arose early in childhood. Freud holds in general that 
owing to our ignorance of the most important mental processes 
of early childhood, and our personal amnesia for this period, 
the significance for later life of these early trends is vastly 
underestimated." - The importance of this view can hardly be 
overvalued, but determinism does not cover the whole ground. 

Jung lays stress upon the view that the unconscious has 
not only a retrospective causal meaning but also a teleological 
one. That is to say, it is not only the result of repression, 
but is the creative mind, expressing itself in symbols and 
symptomatic acts because it can only express itself in a non- 
rational manner. The unconscious has a Janus head, it faces 
both ways, it is a shutter and opener of doors. F. W. Myers 
also, recognising its prospective meaning, regarded the man 
of genius as the best type of normal, and for him genius lay 
in an increased control over subliminal mentation. He did 
not claim that all that was unconscious bore the character of 
inspiration, but rather that those who gained an effective 
contact with the unconscious were able by this means to 
utilise a wider range of faculties that are in some degree innate 

1 " Human Personality," F. W. Myers. 
• " Psycho-analysis," Dr. E. Jones. 



PKODUCTION OF THE PSYCHONEUKOSES 175 

in all. 1 It is just this effective contact that we strive for in 
the analytical work. If the patient in pursuit of a better 
adaptation can acquire courage to be a little peculiar if 
necessary, or different from others, he can often carry out his 
life task with satisfaction to himself and with benefit to his 
neighbours. To do this he needs to find new values in himself. 
Values hitherto unknown to him lie in the unconscious mind. 
In searching for the roots of his illness he finds unexpected 
and interesting material. The new outlook upon life thus 
provided, goes far to carry him over the difficult conquest of 
his neurosis. 

The neurotic or psychotic person shows in his symptoms 
and morbid ideas traces, not only of his personal, but of his 
racial history. In mild cases he goes back to his own infantile 
past ; in severe cases he falls back upon old instincts and 
manners which were once well adapted in the remote history 
of anthropoid or primitive man. In the last stages of mental 
dissociation the patient entirely loses his adaptation to the 
objective world of to-day, and the unconscious contents of the 
mind turn out the conscious. An insane person becomes 
identified with his unconscious, and for him the phenomena 
of consciousness have become the dream. 

In normal health there is an effective diaphragm between 
the conscious and unconscious. This allows an advantageous 
play between the two portions of the mind and yet serves for 
a separation. The natural "go-between" is the dream or 
phantasy. In neurosis the diaphragm is too permeable. In 
mania its function is abrogated. 

We are helped in our understanding of dream and phantasy, 
and also in the comprehension of neurosis, by a study of 
primitive man. The primitive mind works by means of images 
or representations of an idea, not by abstract thought. The 
idea is seized in a picture. Just as the young child cannot 
differentiate between the inner and outer life, no more can 
the primitive separate subject and object. His subjective 
interpretations cover everything, he animises and anthro- 
pomorphises everything. He mixes up the imaginary and 
1 " Human Personality," F. W. Myers. 



176 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

the real. Persons and things are confused with their 
attributes, and causes with effects. Out of his confusion 
intuitions emerge which are often erroneous. Schultze records 
" that a Kafir once broke off a piece of an anchor, and died 
soon afterwards. Subsequently Kafirs attributed divine signifi- 
cance to the anchor, which they reverenced, greeting it when- 
ever they passed, in order to avoid its wrath." " Man," says 
Professor Hobhcuse, "has travelled far when image making 
has developed into thinking." l Thus we normally follow two 
kinds of thinking. 2 Directed thinking is conscious, purposive 
and abstract. It is responsible, and represents mental work 
and achievement. It is a function of adaptation. Undirected 
thinking is subconscious, irresponsible, and is a means of 
turning away from reality and gaining pleasure. It is restful, 
generally unproductive. This is what Bleuler calls ''Autistic- 
thinking." " It is characterised by the predominance of the 
inner life with active turning away from the outer world." 3 It 
is not adapted to reality. 

The unconscious, like the primitive, cannot think otherwise 
than by representation, that is symbolically. Freud attributes 
symbolism to the action of the censor, who tries to keep the 
repressed wish from consciousness. But this condensation and 
distortion is similar to the primitive blurring of things with 
their attributes, causes with their effects. In the dream we 
are on the level with what Jane Harrison calls the " Totemistic 
Thinker." 4 Neurotic symptoms are often the result of equally 
false inferences with those of the Kafirs just cited, inferences 
also made unconsciously. Dr. Samuel Johnson's compulsion 
neurosis forced him to touch posts, 5 he knew no more why he 

1 " Morals in Evolution," L. T. Hobhouse. Vol. 2. pp. 264 et seq. 

* " Psychology of the Unconscious," chap. i. 

s "The Psycho-analytic Method," Pfister, p. 303. 

• ■' Themis," Jane Harrison, 

5 Mr. S. VThyte (" Miscellanea Nova," p. 49) tells how, from old Mr. 
Sheridan's house in Bedford Street, opposite Henrietta Street, with an opera 
glass he watched Johnson approaching. " I perceived him at a good distance 
working along with a peculiar solemnity of deportment, and an awkward sort 
of measured step. Upon every post as he passed along, he deliberately laid his 
hand ; but. missing one of them, when he bad got at some distance, he seemed 
suddenly to recollect himself, and immediately returning carefully performed 



PKODUCTION OF THE PSYCHONEUKOSES 177 

did it than the Kafir now knows why he salutes the anchor. 
All compulsive acts, like washing ceremonies, covering of 
timepieces, and clothing rituals, belong to the category of 
fetichism and taboo. 

When we turn to the question of the phantasies them- 
selves we find they occur whenever conscious attention is 
relaxed. In most people they pass by subliminally, unheeded. 
We gradually become aware of them when we look out for 
them. Consciously directed phantasies are called " day 
dreams." Other types spring into consciousness fully formed 
as it were — having a pictorial or dramatic form. They are 
similar in character to the creations of the poet or novelist. 
If the phantasies are of great or universal value we allow them 
to be " inspired." Dreams occurring during sleep are of the 
same involuntary material, so are hypnagogic and hypna- 
pompic visions which occur in the state between sleep and 
waking. Visions such as A. E. describes in " The Candle of 
Vision " are subjectively formed, and should be estimated as 
subjective material. " What a savage experiences during a 
dream is just as real to him as what he sees when he is 
awake " (Spencer and Gillen). To believe in the objectivity 
of the vision is to put oneself back on the level of the 
primitive thinking. It means that we become hallucinated 
by belief in the objective reality of the psychic perceptions. 
This happened in the case of one of my patients, who was one 
day looking at the Albert Memorial. (Suddenly one of the 
figures in the frieze appeared to step out and threaten her. 
She ran panting and terrified for a considerable distance 
before she was able to shake off the hallucination. 

The following cases further illustrate the significance of 
phantasy in the production of the psycho-neuroses. 

Mrs. X, aged forty-seven, was complaining of symptoms attri- 
buted to the menopause. She had hot flushes, of such violence 
that she woke from sleep several times every night drenched with 

the accustomed ceremony, and resumed his former course, not omitting one 
till he gained the crossing. This, Mr. Sheridan assured me, was his constant 
practice." Birkheck Hill's " Boswell's Life of Johnson," vol. i., note 1, 
1>. 481. 

12 



178 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

perspiration. In the day she had attacks of dry burning heat 
which lasted for hours, and which completely unnerved her. 
The physical examination gave a negative result. 

She spoke of home troubles. It appeared that she and 
her husband were living in the house of her aged father. He 
was eighty-two, and latterly almost confined to his room. She 
could never leave the house without evoking a scene and severe 
criticism from her father, consequently she rarely went out. 
She had always been afraid of him. When she was about 
sixteen she could never take a meal in his presence without 
vomiting afterwards. He sometimes used to beat her. She 
told me her married life was "thoroughly satisfactory," and 
that she and her husband had been very happy till they went 
to live with her father a few years ago, on the death of her 
mother whom she loved devotedly. It appeared Mrs. X's 
mother was very unhappy in her married life, the daughter 
had always sympathised with her and shared her sufferings. 
Mrs. X was quite alive to the drama of her situation, and 
rather enjoyed the recital of her martyrdom, speaking about 
it in short breathless sentences.-* 

I cannot detail the dream analysis by means of which I 
found the patient was unconsciously identified with her 
mother. Not only did she sympathise with her mother, but 
she actually Jbore her sufferings in her lifetime, and must needs 
take her place after her death, and bring herself once more 
into outward subjection to her father. 

It transpired that she had never had conjugal relations 
with her husband. Her marriage was preceded by a long 
engagement, drawn out for no valid reason. She said her 
husband " treated her more like a mother than a wife " ; that 
is, he made no sexual demands upon her. He seemed to think 
it quite natural they should go to live with the old father. 
To cut a long story short : the vomiting after puberty proved 
to be a pregnancy identification ; it was "as if" she were in 
a situation like her mother's. Here is a case where an un- 
conscious relation to the father, though covered by conscious 
hostility, has operated like a fate throughout the woman's life. 
She married a man who did not make the ordinary demands 



PRODUCTION OF THE PSYCHONEUROSES 179 

upon her, and she drifted back, years later, into the paternal 
home to take her dead mother's place. The identification is 
the predisposing cause of the breakdown for which the meno- 
pause supplies an occasion. Her dreams showed her to be 
extremely prudish ; her phantasies were those of an adolescent 
girl. It seems probable that every symptom of puberty and 
the menopause that is very pronounced or distressing is 
evidence of an unconscious conflict, which will be found to lie 
in the psycho-sexual sphere. 

The next case is one of dissociated personality. At puberty 
this sufferer was exposed to a severe sexual shock. Once, on 
coming home from school, Ellen was followed by a rough- 
looking man. She ran away from him. It is pertinent to 
the unconscious motivation that, instead of continuing on the 
main road, she ran up a side road into a wood, "it seemed 
safer " (the unconscious wish). She was overtaken, and 
after a desperate struggle with the man she was thrown down, 
previous to an intended rape. At the critical moment her 
shrieks brought rescue (libido against the unconscious wish). 
The man was subsequently prosecuted. The girl had to 
appear in court, and experienced a good deal of reaction of 
a conscious kind. But the tension aroused got no relief, and 
was relegated to the unconscious. She was now frightened 
v to sleep alone, so her mother took her into her bed, and 
mourned over her unhappy experience, and crooned out 
mysterious warnings about sex. Ellen determined to forget 
the whole thing. She succeeded in doing this, but was not 
very successful in her attempt to secure comfort, for she was 
constantly ill, suffered from dysmenorrhcea, and was often 
nervous and irritable. She became deeply religious, and took 
up social work with fervour. When she came to me she was 
over thirty. She was then suffering from lapses of memory, 
and had a history of fugue-like attacks which lasted for days, 
and even so long as a couple of weeks. In these attacks she 
was in another state of consciousness, and would re-enact the 
unhappy experience of puberty. She looked wild, threw 
herself about, struggled and made incoherent cries. She was 
habitually constipated, and in these attacks she became still 



180 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

more so, and an enema was finally resorted to. She had no 
memory of the attacks on waking. 

In her normal state she was in many respects brilliantly 
clever, but she had frequent emotional phases which were 
spoken of as " Ellen's childish unreasonableness." Any strain 
or emotional difficulty would serve to bring on an attack 
which might develop into a fugue. During her fugues she 
was extremely suggestible, which tendency was used to her 
advantage by those in medical charge of her. 

The analysis soon brought the dissociated mental state into 
consciousness. The constipation was seen to have been the 
means of bringing about a certain local tension ; the use of 
the enema as a symbolic substitution in the attacks served to 
carry the coitus symbol to its conclusion. 

In this case, the making conscious of the underlying 
motives of the attack aroused very great resistances. How- 
ever, it says much for the excellent goodwill of the patient, 
that once the libido was detached from the dominating 
phantasies, she never had a recurrence of the fugue. 

These cases, in common with many published cases, show 
the far-reaching effects of phantasy. Some very striking 
cases have been reported in connection with the war. It was 
a surprise to a considerable portion of the medical profession 
to find that hysteria is of common occurrence among men as 
well as among women. The neuroses of war and peace are on 
a similar basis ; although the exciting factors are different, 
there is no difference in the unconscious mechanisms at work. 
The peace neuroses generally have a less dramatic onset, and 
naturally attract less interest. 

It is indeed a welcome sign of the times that physicians * 

1 In a paper on " Differential Diagnosis," Dr. Riddock points out that we 
have reached a stage of reaction against the exclusive study of morhid anatomy 
in our search into disturbances of function. He says, " The study of isolated 
signs has lost interest for the growing school of medical research. Investiga- 
tion as to whether the knee jerk as a solitary phenomenon is present or absent, 
no longer casts a glamour over us : we want to know what functional systems 
are out of order, and how the individual as a whole is reacting to altered con- 
ditions. . . . Disordered function does not necessarily imply disordered 
structure, but if it goes on long enough it may do so. . . . Broadly speaki)ig 
symptoms are the evidence of deranged function, signs are the evidence of gross 



PRODUCTION OF THE PSYCHONEUROSES 181 

and patients alike are beginning to recognise the importance 
of mental factors in the production of disease. 

structural change. ... To understand symptoms we must listen to the patient. 
. . The mass of evidence produced by the war has opened our eyes to the 
profound influence exerted by abnormal mental states on bodily function, and 
vice versd. We see more clearly that the prime function of the nervous 
system is its integrative action, and that its guiding and controlling force i3 
the mind. . . . One of the lessons to be learned is the necessity for psychological 
methods as part of tlie~ equipment for diagnosis." — " Functional Nerve Disease,' ' 
Ed. H. Crichton Miller, 1920, p. 115. Frowde and Hodder & Stoughton. 



REVIEW OF "THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE 
UNCONSCIOUS" 1 

The book under review is one that is of great value to 
advanced students of analytical psychology. It needs many 
readings, for in spite of Dr. Beatrice Hinkle's excellent 
introduction, it remains a peculiar " formless " book. Though 
it is full of deep thought and valuable conclusions, it has 
the air of being an impromptu composition. If this is not 
a merit from the literary standpoint, it is a merit from the 
standpoint of the evolution of thought. 

The writer devoted his leisure of several years to the 
production of this book. There is internal evidence of 
the gradual loosening from certain of the Freudian theories, 
and the formulation of new views, which have led to the 
separation of the Yiennese and Swiss schools. The writer 
quotes Guglielmo Ferrero, and expresses his own mental 
attitude in the words, "It is a moral duty for a man of 
science to expose himself to the risk of committing error, 
and to submit to criticism, in order that science may continue 
to progress." 

Miss Miller, who forms the subject of Dr. Jung's psycho- 
logical analysis, is a certain young American woman, of good 
education and considerable attainments, and of high personal 
character. This lady supplied her physician, Dr. Flournoy, 
with some very interesting subconscious material, and ex- 
pressed the hope that it might prove of value to others. 
Dr. Flournoy published it, together with some remarks of 
his own, in the Archives de Psyclidlogie, 1906, vol. v. 

Dr. Jung regarded these phantasies as typical subconscious 
material (which every psycho-analyst would recognise them 

i " Psyohology of the Unconscious," Jung. Translated by B. M, Hinkle, 
M.D. Moffat, Yard & Co., New York. 

132 



"THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS" 183 

to be), and investigated this " individual phantasy system," 
by means of the free associations supplied by Miss Miller 
herself, in her original text ; and also by a study of analogous 
material for comparison, derived from mythology, religion, 
literature, philology, and analytical experience. The limita- 
tion of the associative material in this case is a practical 
advantage, because it allows the analyst to place the emphasis 
on the universal aspects, rather than the personal ones. 
A justification for the conclusions arrived at lies in the fact 
that, no matter how unlike people are in the conscious con- 
tents of their minds, they are much more alike in the un- 
conscious. For while each person has a particular personal 
memory or background (the personal unconscious), each 
shares in one that is universal and racial (the impersonal 
unconscious). The social environment changes greatly, but 
the main psychological problems remain the same for indi- 
viduals in all ages, and under all conditions. 

The book opens with a reference to the (Edipus myth, 
now familiar to all students of psycho-analysis. This myth 
is of great importance analytically, for it represents the 
incestuous bond to the parents which is present in every 
neurosis, and of which traces are found in all normal people. 
" Incest " is understood very concretely by the Freudians, but 
a merely materialistic interpretation of it restricts its meaning 
and value. The incest is psychological, not physical. It is 
seen in the bond of the young child to the mother, which 
is one of dependence and irresponsibility. What adult does 
not know moments of danger, difficulty, or doubt, in which 
the wish for a comforting touch, for oblivion, for deliverance 
from the need to decide, or to suffer, is a paramount longing 
of the soul? A writer in Tlie Nation remarked during the 
war that "among the French wounded he had almost 
invariably heard the cry in the first anguish of pain, ' Oh, 
maman, maman ! ' the innocent, childlike cry for the mother's 
comfort." 

The intention of " The Psychology of the Unconscious " 
was not so much to present an analysis of a special indi- 
vidual, as to illustrate from the unconscious material provided, 



184 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

the synibolisations and transformations which the libido 
undergoes in the course of life. 

These changes are based upon an energic conception of 
the libido ; the idea of psychic energy embraces a concept of 
biological energy, in which what is psychic is a specific part. 
It comprises relations between body and soul. This bio- 
psychological energy must be accepted hypothetically as 
libido. 

Where energy disappears from one place it reappears in 
another, and one psychic activity is immediately replaced by 
another. "Whenever an activity that has occupied the libido 
comes to an end, another activity begins either in the 
conscious or unconscious. The total sum of energy always 
remains constant ; x an equivalent expression can always be 
found. 

If we pass from the general concept of libido to a more 
particular understanding of it, we find it has something of 
the meaning of "niana," which Gilbert Murray describes as 
"that fine primitive word which comprises force, vitality, 
prestige, holiness, and power of magic, and which belong 
equally to a lion, a chief, a medicine man or a battle axe. . . . 
]\Iana is the positive power or force that man tries to acquire 
from his totem animal or his god. But there is also a 
negative side to be considered: there is not only the mana 
but the tabu, the Forbidden, the Thing Feared. "2 

Or if we use the word " wakonda " we get a similar idea 
from McGee, who says : " In Dakotan tribes the sun is 
"Wakonda — not the Wakonda, the moon is Wakonda, and so 
are thunder, lightning, and stars, the winds, cedars, and even 
man, especially a Shaman might be Wakonda. The term is 
applied to mythic monsters of earth, air, and water, to 
fetiches, ceremonial objects, and places of striking character." 

1 When Robert Mayer introduced this idea into dynamics it " removed 
their character as elements from the forces, imparting to them the character 
of manifestations of energy, so the libido theory similarly removes from the 
sexual components the idea of mental ' faculties,' and ascribes to them 
merely phenomenal value." " Theory of Psycho-analysis," Jung. Mono- 
graph Series, p. 88. 

* " Four Stages of Greek Religion." Gilbert Murray. 



; 'THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS" 185 

Under what wide aspects the author regards the libido is 
seen throughout "The Psychology of the Unconscious." He 
answers the question, "What is G-od?" by "A thought which 
humanity everywhere, and in all ages, has brought forth from 
itself, ever and again in new and similar forms ; a power in 
the world to which man gives praise ; a power which creates 
as well as destroys, an idea necessary to life. . . ." 1 " G-od is our 
own longing to which we pay divine honours. . . . 2 Psycho- 
logically God is a projected representation complex accentuated 
in feeling according to the degree of religiousness of the 
individual, so God is to be considered as the representative 
of a certain sum of energy (libido). ... To bear a god 
within oneself signifies to be a god." Hence we see libido is 
not only effect, but the energy which produces it. God is 
not only the object of longing., but the longing itself. 

To return to the Miller phantasies : it is a matter of 
experience in analysis that the dream deals with the most 
important and most painful problem of the moment, hence 
these phantasies introduce us to intimate problems of life. 
When the libido retires into the unconscious (introversion) it 
must of necessity reappear in a form which portrays uncon- 
scious activity, viz. some form of phantasy. In Miss Miller's 
case, the wish-tendencies are expressed in a subliminal 
poem, " The Hymn of Creation." Analysis of this poem, as in 
the case of the dream, leads directly to the most important 
and painful problems of the soul. 

The first two lines of the three verses run as follows : 3 

When the Eternal first made Sound 
A myriad ears sprang out to hear ; 

When the Eternal first made Light 
A myriad eyes sprang out to look ; 

When the Eternal first gave Love 
A myriad hearts sprang into life ; 

The poem was written after a period of travel, followed by 
a time of introversion, for which a long sea journey gave the 
opportunity. During this time Miss Miller was ruminating 

1 Pp. 70, 71. » P. 96. 3 P. 53. 



186 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

upon all she had seen and experienced in her travels. 
Towards the end of the voyage, the personal beauty and 
charm of the Italian officers of the ship strikes her, and one 
of them makes " a great impression " upon her. She then 
produced the afore-mentioned dream-poem, a phenomenon 
of the unconscious, which " can only be explained as arising 
from a disturbance which reaches to the very depths of her 
being." It indicates that feelings of love are involved. The 
significance of the poem is discussed from the psychological 
standpoint only. It is evident that the feelings of the 
authoress have been aroused, but she has either undervalued 
the impression made, or forbidden its entry into consciousness. 
In spite of this, or because of it, the amount of libido devoted 
to the love-object still operates in the psyche, and being 
denied an external expression becomes transferred in a 
regressive manner, via the creative deity back to an earlier 
object, viz. the father image, or the Father-Imago. The term 
"imago" is borrowed from Spitteler's novel of that name, a 
story in which the hero turns the woman he loves into a 
phantasy, whom he calls "Imago." He endows her with 
a number of ideal qualities which she did not possess at all, 
but which were a projection of his own infantile phantasy 
founded upon the mother. Under the Father-Imago, in Miss 
Miller's phantasy, appear successively God, Creator, Sun, 
Light, Fire, which, as libido symbols, are mythologically 
synonymous. 

Hiss Miller next supplies certain important associations 
including Milton's " Paradise Lost," the Book of Job, Haydn's 
Oratorio "The Creation," and some adolescent phantasies 
connected with the " don d'amour." These are linked together 
in the unconscious; a sum of evidence going to prove that 
undervaluation of the love problem quickly leads to repression ; 
"the erotic impression works in the unconscious, and in its 
stead pushes up symbols into consciousness." 1 The love conflict 
in this case is recast as religious feeling; this recasting is, 
from the ethical point of view, worthless, and practically 
ineffectual, because it is not consciously undertaken, the libido 

1 P. 67. 



"THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS-' 1ST 

being automatically transferred from one field to another. This 
unconscious transference is contrasted with the demands made 
by Christianity, where " the burdening complex of the soul " x 
is consciously given over to the Deity. "... whoever to his 
conscious sin (or sorrow) just as consciously places religion in 
opposition, does something the greatness of which cannot be 
denied." 2 Though the psychological origin of the deity is 
unknown to the believer, " he after all bears his own burden, 
overcomes his own conflict, and achieves sublimation of his 
immediate erotic feelings by a conscious process." 

The sterility of Miss Miller's repression is shown in her 
next poem, "The Moth to the Sun." Because the conflict 
was repressed and unconscious, it was bound to return again 
and again, as it does now. 3 The writer identifies herself with 
the moth, and this identification with the insect is indicative 
of her self-depreciation. " Her longing for God resembles the 
longing of the moth for the star " ; l by association the ship's 
officer is the star or sun. He is thus put effectually out of 
reach, and the libido which might have been consciously put 
on the love-object, is unconsciously transferred to the sun 
which symbolises on the one side God, on the other side the 
officer. " It is by such a mechanism of transference of the 
libido, that in the realm of pathology objects which have no 
intrinsic sexual value obtain a sexual significance. These 
transferences aim at alleviation or cure of the illness or 
psychic pain, hence they have a teleological meaning." 

Dr. Jung conceives the libido from the genetic standpoint, 
and regards the "multiplicity of instincts as issuing from a 
relative unity of the primary libido." 5 The deflection of the 
libido from the purely sexual aim of seed-production, to that 
of allurement, of nest-building, and protection of the young, 
is, as it were, to de-sexualise or differentiate it. This tendency 
brings about a heightened adaptation to reality. The " fonction 
du reel " 6 is not to be regarded as a sexual function in the 

1 P. 75. » P. 82. 

3 Pfister calls this the " law of the return of the complex," p. 56. Com- 
plexes worked over in the unconscious lose none of their original affect (p. 92). 
1 P. 93. 5 P. 150. " : P. 142. 



188 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

manner of the Viennese school, but consists to-day " only in 
its smaller part of libido sexualis, and in its greater part of 
other impulses." * 
-fc In human life every new step demands a new adjustment, 
and may cause a disturbance in the application and manifesta- 
tion of the libido. By primitive man, who is the prototype 
for the undeveloped tendencies in the unconscious, new objects 
are always regarded with fear, and they demand a gradual 
process of understanding and adaptation. This involves new 
and increasing differentiation and a further de-sexualising of 
the libido. The only way in which man can assimilate the 
new objects is by analogy as sexual symbols, and so by 
degrees "an enormous broadening of the world-idea takes 
place." 2 This "carrying over of the libido to a phantastic 
correlate " (which has its origin in a resistance which opposes 
primitive sexuality), "has led primitive man to a number 
of most important discoveries " ; - the production of speech, 
language, and fire were some of the firstfruits of this differ- 
entiation of libido. 

Miss Miller's next piece of symbolism shows the libido 
personified in the form of a hero. She supplies a hypnagogic 
poem, which is created in a mental state " similar to that which 
usually precedes an intentional somnambulism as described by 
spiritualistic mediums." 3 The dreamer, who has turned away 
more or less consciously from the fate of loving, is forced to 
make an introversion of that portion of libido which should 
have been applied to life, and in so doing she conjures up from 
the unconscious the figure of " Chiwantopel," a very feminine 
and infantile hero who represents her own subjective longing. 4 
At such a moment, if the biological task is rejected, under 
given conditions a neurosis may supervene, owing to the 
ambitendency (Bleuler) or dualism of the will, which tears 

1 P. lii. 
* P. 156. 

3 P. 192. 

4 We are dealing here with an unconscious conflict. " The external object 
cannot be loved, because a predominant amount of libido prefers a phantastic 
object, 'which must be brought up from the depths of the unconscious as com- 
pensation for the missing reality," p. 197. 



"THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS" 189 

asunder the pairs of opposites. " The resistance against loving 
produces the inability to love." * 

-&. The psychological root of this conflict, as revealed by 
analysis, strikes deep into the incest problem. The difficulty 
in detaching the libido from the mother is described by 
Nietzsche as "the sacrilegious backward grasp." 2 It is the 
tendency which "scorns real solutions, and prefers phantastic 
substitutes." 3 The childish personality turns ever to the 
mother. She is the perilously loved object who represents 
dangers to the soul, because she is loved too long, and too 
exclusively. She thus becomes the "Terrible Mother," on 
account of the resistances aroused by the forward-striving 
libido. When she is overcome, she again wears the aspect 
of the beneficent life-giving mother. 

Miss Miller's phantasies "must be understood as schemes 
or plans whereby the obstacles may be overcome." The 
author of the "Psychology of the Unconscious" shows by 
numerous examples, that whenever an obstacle occurs in life, 
in the pause that comes before it is either swept away, or 
succumbed to, an introversion of libido takes place which 
floods the unconscious, and a creation of phantasy arises in 
consequence. It is only in psychological analysis, or in 
special psychic states (such as Miss Miller's introverted state), 
or under certain definite conditions of study having the 
unconscious mind as their object, that we are sufficiently 
alive to these things, to realise how invariably under such 
circumstances, phantasies with specific meanings arise. 

The normal person usually finds his way by bringing 
judgment to bear on imagination ; the neurotic remains with 
the phantasy, which may erect substitutes for reality in the 
form of symptoms. Thus, as the writer says, " the temporary 
withdrawal into the self which signifies a regression to the 
childish bond to the parent, seems to act favourably within 
limits in its effects on the psychologic condition of the 
individual. It is generally to be expected that the two 
fundamental mechanisms of the psychoses, transference and 
introversion, are to a wide extent extremely appropriate 
1 P. 194. ? P. 195. 3 P. 196. 



190 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

methods of normal reaction against complexes ; transference 
as a means of escaping from the complex into reality, intro- 
version as a means of detaching oneself from reality through 
the complex." x The author adduces many examples to prove 
how constant is the tendency to represent the repressed libido 
in the image of the parents. 

Analysis always leads back ultimately to the mother bond. 
The libido becomes spiritualised by the use of symbols, " the 
incestuous desire aims at being a child again, not at incest 
itself," it turns from the concrete sexuality which cannot be 
lived, to the formation of a phantasy or belief by means of 
which it may be spiritually transformed. Religion fosters the 
formation of symbols. In response to the question put by 
Is icodemus, can a man " enter a second time into his mother's 
womb and be born?"-, Christ's answer shows that the libido 
must be withdrawn from the concrete idea of a re-birth, and 
transferred to a spiritual comprehension of it. " The symbol 
considered from the standpoint of actual truth is misleading, 
but it is psychologically true." 3 The libido, however, should be 
consciously taken possession of ; in this way man is freed from 
compulsion, and he replaces a belief in the symbol itself, by 
und-erstamling. 3Ian needs the dynamic energy bound up with 
the incest phantasy ; then only is he in a condition to over- 
come the " Terrible Mother," to gain his complete indepen- 
dence, and proceed with his life -task. 

In the chapter on " The Dual Mother Role " the meaning 
of the miraculous or mythical birth of the hero is discussed. 
The birth of the hero is always different from that of an 
ordinary mortal, it is irregular in some way (such as a re-birth 
from a Mother- spouse), and is accompanied by mysterious 
ceremonies. Sometimes the hero is subjected to exposure, and 
in this way acquires foster-parents, either human beings, as in 
Moses' case, or animals, as in the case of Romulus and Remus. 
The twofold mother is sometimes replaced by the twofold 
birth, an idea which has become familiar to us in the Christian 
teaching, namely, through baptism. By this re-birth man 
becomes a participator with God. The death of Christ on the 

» P. 201. § St, John iii. 4. 3 P. 262. 



"THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS" 191 

Cross is a baptism x or re-birth through, the second mother, the 
mysterious Tree of Death. "A hero is he who may again 
produce himself through his Mother." 2 He must be re-born 
through introversion of the libido, by which means he comes 
to himself by self-sacrifice. 

The story of Hiawatha and of Siegfried and Brunhilda, 
both introduced by Miss 3Iiller's associations, bear out all the 
aforementioned stages of the myth. The dual mother phantasy 
is founded upon a " primordialj image belonging to the secrets 
of the universal history of the human mind." 3 

The last chapter in the book deals with the sacrifice man 
must make of the libido which is invested in the mother, since 
it is required for other purposes of life. Sexuality is shown 
not as the goal but as the symbol of the unconscious longing 
for " creation out of the self." A long training in sublimation 
is required in order that man may love that which he is bound 
to do, and not only find life but also joy in it. " Man discovers 
the world when he sacrifices the mother." The incest barrier 
is set up by his aspirational striving, and beyond it lies the 
attainment of his own thinking and feeling. This overcoming 
of the mother is also conceived as the realisation of the differ- 
ence between subject and object, and the individuation 
tendency, which strives to free itself from what is collective, 
in order to create a new form out of itself. It involves a 
sacrifice of the lower nature, and, indeed, of the whole per- 
sonality, for, expressed in another way, the personality is but 
the mask (the persona) of the individual. 

The writer sums up the meaning of the book as follows : 
" The object of psycho-analysis has been wrongly understood 
to mean the renunciation or gratification of the ordinary 
sexual wish ; in reality the problem is one of the sublimation 
of the infantile personality, or, expressed mythologically, the 
sacrifice and re-birth of the hero. In psycho-analysis the 

1 " Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of, and be baptised with the 
baptisnxthat I am baptised with ? " St. Mark x. 38. " We are buried with Viirn 
by baptism into death . . . if we be dead with Christ we believe we shall also 
live with Him," Rom. vi. 

* P. 357. 

3 " Collected Papers," p. 110. 



192 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

infantile personality is deprived of its libido fixations in a 
rational manner ; the libido which is thns set free serves for 
the building up of a personality., matured and adapted to 
reality who does willingly and without complaint everything 
required by necessity." x 

The book deals largely with the meaning of the symbolic 
and mythologic representations of sexual phantasies. Headers 
who are unwilling to admit that sexual phantasies exist, or 
that, if existing, they are of value, will rind the book long and 
tedious. Those, on the other hand, who want to find out why 
phantasies are sexual, and how it is they are so, will read it 
with the care and study it requires. Attentive self-observation 
soon discloses what the author points out in Part I. of the 
"Psychology of the Unconscious," viz. that "We have two 
forms of thinking — directed thinking, and dream or phantasy 
. thinking. The former, working for communication with 
speech elements, is troublesome and exhausting ; the latter, 
on the contrary, goes on without trouble, working spontaneously, 
so to speak, with reminiscences. The former creates innova- 
tions, adaptations, imitates reality and seeks to act upon it. 
The latter turns away from reality, sets free subjective wishes, 
and is, in regard to immediate adaptation, wholly unpro- 
ductive." 2 

The achievement of rational thinking has been extremely 
slow. Long ages before anything approximating to thinking 
existed, in the modern sense, man's thought was by means of 
what we now call phantasy. Archaic man created, not science, 
but mythology. His best knowledge is handed down to us in 
his myths. We need only instance the myths of creation, or 
such an one as the miraculous gift of the Decalogue upon 
Mount Sinai. Fairy tales which are childish myths, folk-lore 
and legend are attempts to explain the why and wherefore of 
the world's happenings. " Man in his phantastic thinking 
has kept a condensation of the psychic history of his develop- 
ment." 3 The production of language, and of ideas by means 
of myths, is a tearing loose of libido in the service of 

i P. 479. 

= P. 22. 2 P, 36. 



"THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS" 193 

sublimation. " The secret of the development of culture lies 
in the mobility of the libido and its capacity for transference." 

Dr. Jung controverts the idea that inclinations to myth- 
making are implanted merely by education, and claims that, 
if all the myths of civilisation were swept away to-day, the 
tendency would immediately break out de novo, because a 
specifically human need for it exists. "Has humanity ever 
broken free from myths?" he asks. "Every man has eyes 
and all his senses to perceive that the world is dead, cold, and 
unending, and he has never yet seen a God, nor brought to 
light the existence of such from empirical necessity. On the 
contrary, there was need of a phantastic, indestructible 
optimism, and one far removed from all sense of reality, in 
order, for example, to discover in the shameful death of Christ 
the really highest salvation and the redemption of the world." 1 
A few supermen claim to get beyond the human, but though 
they destroy the form of the myth they cannot destroy the 
creating impulse. 

When man's chief problem lay in how to find food for 
himself, when he knew nothing of the principles of agriculture, 
phallic cults and the use of fertility symbols were widespread. 
The same symbols are found to-day where the conditions are 
unchanged. Wallis Budge 2 tells us that the symbolism 
present in the ancient Egyptian papyri still prevails among 
many African tribes. Fertility symbols are abundantly used 
to enchant the powers and placate the malevolent gods, in 
order that the rains may fall and the crops be abundant. So 
little does our psychology change that the moment we are 
confronted by a new situation in history, or a new custom in 
society, or by subversive ideas in thought, we show our inclina- 
tion to resist it or assimilate it in our phantasies. Our 
childish and archaic inclinations appear again and again as 
we fall away from our adapted thinking, either on account 
of regression, due to resistances, or at the demands of a 
completely fresh adaptation. 

Something of this feeling is present from time to time in 

1 " Psychology of the Unconscious," p, 30. 
1 " Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection." 

13 



194 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

the reading of the book under review, and of other analytical 
literature. Resistances against what is new and strange in it 
are inevitably aroused. This is a perfectly natural process ; 
all advance is made against resistances, and such resistances 
neither condemn nor approve the reader. They arise partly in 
resistances against the unconscious itself, and are testimony to 
the deep psychological problems with which the book deals, 
problems in which every reader participates to a certain 
extent. To students of symbolism, of primitive culture, or of 
analytical psychology, this book offers many lines that are 
suggestive for further inquiry. They will read it many times, 
each time with increasing appreciation. It is almost too rich 
in examples, and this super-abundance makes it difficult read- 
ing. It is, however, a treasure-house of reference, and for this 
reason one wishes it had a much more extensive index. Not 
the least valuable part of the book is to be found in the notes 
and references culled from many ancient and modern languages 
and peoples, all translated into English. It is obvious that 
the translator has had a very difficult task, and we are much 
indebted to her for the way she has accomplished it. It would 
make the analysis clearer, if in a future edition of the book, 
the whole of the Miller phantasies were published as originally 
presented in Dr. Flournoy's monograph. The reader could 
then estimate for himself the continuity and quality of the 
material used for analysis. 



XI 

PSYCHOLOGICAL ADAPTATION ! 

Adaptation is a term used in connection with theories of 
evolution to describe the processes by means of which organisms 
become adjusted to the conditions of their life. It is a two- 
fold process; firstly, the organism responds passively to 
changes in the environment ; secondly, to active variations 
arising from within, in response to an inherent impulse. 

Psychological adaptation proceeds in a similar manner, in 
response to the social environment, and to movements in the 
creative libido within the organism. 

Changes affecting the species are preserved and accentuated 
throughout the ages, and well adapted organisms are those in 
which there is a harmonious adjustment to all the conditions. 
We know, however, that countless sacrifices have been made 
before any given species has become adapted. 

Analytical psychology regards neurosis as a failure in 
adaptation. We are confronted with the fact that civilisation, 
which has been so laboriously built up, has reached a point 
where its achievements, and the collective customs it has 
imposed, are no longer in harmony with the needs of the 
human organisms. 

Society itself has reached a stage of neurosis ; special 
failures in adaptation are to be seen in such events as the 
world-war and in the industrial war. The times are extra- 
ordinarily complex : and it is fortunate that just now, when 
all the old shibboleths are vanishing, new psychological 
theories have arisen which give us an insight into some of the 
reasons for the intolerable strain from which we are suffering. 

The new psychology has proved both dream and phantasy 

1 Keprinted from the British Journal of Psychology (Medical Section), 
October, 1920, by kind permission of the Editor. 

195 



196 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

to be functions of the psyche. In ancient times the dream 
was more or less valued, but it could only be accepted by the 
modern spirit when it could be placed upon a basis of scientific 
research. The re-discovered function can now be applied to 
the further adjustment of the human problem, for the solution 
of which new means of adaptation are necessary. 

The dream is built up upon non-rational mental and 
emotional processes, of a nature that is compensatory and 
complementary to consciousness, and for the first time in 
modern life all the factors are given a share of consideration. 
The first use of the new methods is to set us exploring the 
uncharted regions of the mind, and bring us into contact with 
the unconscious psyche, whose very existence our one-sided 
scientific views had almost ignored. 

The recognition that adaptation to the inner reality is as 
important in human life as adaptation to the outer reality, 
necessarily has very far-reaching results on our methods of 
analysis. The well-being of the individual lies in the 
adjustment between two sets of equally valid claims. The 
antagonism between the conscious and unconscious now has 
the appearance of being a claim for better understanding 
between the objective necessity and the subjective necessity. 
It is the injustice done to the one or the other that produces 
a loss of balance and disharmony in the individual. Dreams 
and phantasies are " schemes or plans " which have a meaning 
for the solution of the problems of the moment. They are 
corrective and compensatory x to the merely conscious view. 
Thus regarded they demand both objective and subjective 
interpretation. 2 The analogical character of the dream is 
valued, and the manifest content is credited with a meaning 
of equal importance with the latent one. The Viennese 
school of psychoanalysts rejects this kind of analysis. Its 
position is the logical outcome of the theory that the un- 
conscious contains only incompatible wish-tendencies; in 
consequence of which, everything has to be explained on the 

1 " Dream Psychology," Nicoll, chap. vi. " Analytical Psychology," 
p. 280. 

3 See chap. vi. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ADAPTATION 197 

basis of the primitive instincts, hence the "'remedy for 
neurosis would necessarily appear to be as complete as possible 
a life of instinct, in the presence of suitably chosen objects " 
(Jung). If, on the other hand, the unconscious is regarded as 
compensatory to consciousness, then we shall expect to find in 
it representations and symbolisations of principles, functions, 
and points of view missing from consciousness. When the 
unconscious is regarded as the creative mind, we are forced 
to allow that it has claims upon our attention, at least as 
great as those which belong to the world of created things. 

I propose to approach the question of adaptation from the 
point of view of the psychological types into which collectively 
men are grouped. Hen are born into a type just as they are 
born into a family, with a natural tendency to the use of one 
psychological function, somewhat at the expense of the other 
functions. Latterly in analysing my patients I have mentally 
divided them into two main classes : viz. those who are 
orientated to the unconscious, and those who are orientated 
to the conscious. This is actually a different division from 
the types of introversion and extraversion already described 
to us by Dr. Jung., although it arises out of it. In his further 
work on types Dr. Jung has discriminated four types, dividing 
them into groups under the four psychological functions of 
thinking, feeling, intuition, and sensation. Two of these 
types adapt themselves to life by processes we call rational ; 
viz. the introverted type by thinking, and the extraverted 
type by feeling. The other two types adapt themselves by 
instinctive and unconscious processes ; viz. by intuition or by 
sensation, that is to say, by non-rational processes. Dr. Jung 
has been working on the types for several years. He was early 
aware that the two types he first described included others. 
He has very greatly extended his conceptions, and a compre- 
hensive work dealing with this subject is about to be published. 
It has become habitual for me to work with the underlying 
idea of types in my mind, but until the question is better 
understood it must be tentatively handled ; I have, however, 
found it so illuminating that I cannot forbear introducing it ; 
what follows is based upon my own experience of the matter. 



198 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

The names of types given above are abstract definitions — 
too abstract for reality. The ideal type exists in pathological 
states alone, since an over-accentuated type- development in- 
volves such severe repressions as can only occur in neurotic or 
psychotic forms. Most people have mixed qualities ; their main 
tendency and their most highly adapted function is indicated 
in their type-name. 

In the introverted type, thought is the most highly prized 
function. The ego is the object of the libido, and its flow is 
centripetal. The feelings in this type are introverted, and 
they too are related to the ego. This produces aniappearance 
of reserve and coldness. The feelings are present, but they 
are deep and repressed. Such a type is embarrassed when it 
is suddenly confronted with a situation wherein thought offers 
no solution. Examples of statesmen of this type are President 
Wilson and Mr. Asquith. " Wait and see " is really typical 
of the introvert's method. It means, wait till I have been 
able to detach myself from this concrete situation ; wait till I 
have been able to think it out. Sight for this type means 
arriving at the abstract idea. The idea is valued as being 
impersonal and above humanity. The feelings are really too 
" tender " to bear the strain of close contact with the object, 
since this threatens the integrity of the ego. 

In the extraverted type, feeling is the most highly adapted 
function. The external world is the object of the libido, and 
its current is centrifugal. 1 The thoughts as well as the 
feelings turn to the object, and too little attention is paid to 
the subject, and to principles and ideas. This type is 
embarrassed when it is suddenly confronted with a situation 
which cannot be solved by considerations affecting the object. 

The late President Roosevelt is an example of this type, 
also Mr. Lloyd George : although the latter inclines to the 
intuitive type to be described later. Lloyd George is, in a 

1 The late Furneaux Jordan, F.K.C.S., in the third edition of a book 
published in 1S96 called " Character as seen in Body and Parentage," divided 
men and women into two classes, viz. the less impassioned and the more 
impassioyied. They approximate to the extraverted and introverted types 
respectively, although without any consideration of the compensatory 
co-functions. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ADAPTATION 199 

sense, very accessible because he goes close up to persons 
and to the situation, in order to feel himself into it. At 
the same time he lacks the quality of abstract thinking ; 
acting first somewhat impulsively and thinking later, he 
produces the effect of changeability. 

In the subconscious types, viz. the intuitive and sensational, 
the unconscious is the object of the libido. The psychology 
here is subjective and somewhat primitive. The mode of 
adaptation natural to these types has been rendered of 
secondary importance in the process of evolution by the 
development of rational thought and feeling. 

The subconscious types react less to the external world 
than to a subjective image of that world. In these types 
intuition and sensation bear the same relation to each other 
that thinking and feeling occupy in the rational types. The 
strictly intuitive person represses sensation, and the extreme 
sensationalist represses intuition; they are co-functions, 
mutually corrective and compensatory. 

Artists naturally belong to these types, although not ex- 
clusively so. The artist is essentially a medium of the un- 
conscious. His works do not come out of nothing. When 
he is not otherwise inhibited he transfers the content of his 
unconscious into creative forms, by the use of his symbolic 
function. In this way we get work of great universal value 
on the one hand, and on the other of very small merit and 
of a very " personal " kind. In the absence of an expression 
which can work itself out in art, or some other form, the 
unconscious is apt to create compulsions for itself. 

It is characteristic of these types that they find the 
greatest difficulty in adapting themselves to the demands 
of society. They are impatient of responsibility, and often 
come to grief over money matters, or in marriage relations. 
They find fetters where other men find incentives. 

Walt Whitman is a pertinent example of the mental and 
emotional reactions of a subconscious type that has achieved 
self-consciousness. He begins a poem called "Song of 
Myself" in this way l : — 

1 " Leaves of Grass." Centenary Edition. D. Appleton & Co., New York. 



200 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

" I celebrate myself : 
And what I assume you shall assume ; 
For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you. 

Stop this day and night with me, and you shall possess the origin of all 

poems; 
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun (there are millions of suns 

left) ; 
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through 

the eyes of the dead, nor feed on spectres in books ; 
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me ; 
You shall listen to all sides, and filter tlmn from yourself." 

Or again, " I loaf and invite my soul " ; whereupon he 
experiences an immediate contact with the whole of intuitive 
and sensational life. In another phase of feeling, the in- 
sufficiency and one-sidedness of the adaptation to the soul 
brings about a necessity to lay stress on the object. As when 
he says : 

" I will go to the bank by the wood, and become undisguised and naked ; 
I am mad for it to be in contact with me." 

At this moment intuition needs that contact with passion 
to attain a sense of reality. 

In the uncompensated state these non-rational types are 
unstable in their human relations, because in so far as they 
are orientated to the unconscious, they are cut off from being 
understood, or from understanding the rational types. The 
primordial images and instincts comprised in the collective 
unconscious are more valid for them than the external world, 
and form the partially corrected basis of their impulsive ideas 
and actions. 

For the sensational type, the instinct side of the un- 
conscious forms the object. Unless persons of this type are 
under the sway of some passionate emotion they hardly feel 
themselves to be alive. Unless their contact with others is 
productive of sensational effect they hardly realise the fact 
of the existence of others. Perhaps these people express 
themselves most happily in the histrionic arts and in dancing. 
Under this denomination cases of extreme sadism and maso- 
chism belong, and here also we may expect to find those 
patients whose physical sensations play the chief role — such, 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ADAPTATION 201 

for instance, as a hypochondriac whose life is dominated by 
a disgusting taste in the mouth, or a subjective odour. A 
psychotic patient of mine recently refused to take food because 
directly she swallowed it she "felt it creeping about under 
her skin, and passing down her arms and legs." In this class 
the mental conflict is expressed in bodily sensations. 

Imperative and compulsive thoughts belong more especially 
to the intuitional type, because they are greatly influenced 
by the primordial images, which, if uncorrected by reality, 
produce obsessions. These instinct forms of thought enter 
the mind with terrible power, and are accepted without 
judgment or evaluation. A certain patient has a phobia 
of murder-germs. She claims to have been infected by 
clothing bought from a shop where a murder was committed. 
She has burnt hundreds of pounds' worth of clothes because 
they came from this place, or have been touched by infected 
things. The mere utterance of the word "murder" infects 
the environment. Anything that touches a newspaper is 
contaminated if the word is there. She counteracts the effect 
of the murder-germs by countless rituals, and is actuated by 
the principles of totem and taboo. 

Compulsion neurosis is the typical neurosis for this type. 
3Iany criminals are to be found in it. There is also a special 
tendency to form identifications. Adaptation to the external 
world by means of identification with a parent, or friend, or 
teacher, is fairly common. People of this type are driven to 
express their emotions vicariously or collectively, if they have 
found no form of individual expression of an objective kind. 
They act as the parent act3, feel as the friend or husband feels, 
and get on pretty well till something disturbs the adaptation. 
By an unconscious pose the reactions of another personality 
may be successfully imitated. The intuitive type appears to 
be exquisitely sympathetic, owing to the tendency to project 
or introject. This is productive of perfect harmony so long 
as the mutual relation lasts. But when separation befalls, 
through the occurrence of conflicting interests, or unforeseen 
circumstances, the pulling apart is a painful affair. One 
person being orientated to the conscious, the other to the 



202 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

unconscious, or both being related to different aspects of the 
unconscious, reconciliation is very difficult, because they look at 
the same thing from totally different standpoints. The separa- 
tion is as complete as the former identification was complete. 

Mr. Clutton Brock in his able book, " Shelley : the Man 
and the Poet," has given us a picture of an individual of the 
intuitive type. He writes as follows : — 

" Shelley was scarcely aware of imperfection in himself ; 
and when he found it in others, and in external circumstances, 
it seemed to him to be inexplicable evil, which ought to be, 
not improved, but abolished. Thus there is some excuse for 
those admirers who think him perfect, and some for those of 
his contemporaries who thought him a fiend incarnate. There 
was, or appeared to be, no conflict between different parts of 
his nature, but only a conflict between his nature and the ivorld 
outside him. 1 He saw that such a conflict existed, but thought 
it was produced altogether by some external tyranny, or some 
inexplicable perversity in men. There seemed to be a perfect 
harmony in himself, so he thought perfect harmony was 
possible in the world if it would only get rid of those in- 
hibitions which express men's consciousness of an existing 
discord. . . . He never in the course of his short life, attained 
to a full consciousness of himself. . . . He loved people, not 
for themselves, but for what he thought of them. He was 
like those artists who paint the ideal of their own imaginations, 
not the excellence and promise of the real things." 

Difficulties for this type arise in another way also, viz. 
from the animation of the pairs of opposites. For example, 
a certain man had a good deal of success as an academic 
painter. This success made him feel cheap. He thought he 
was not following his highest feeling for art, whereupon he 
relinquished the academic style for a less popular one more 
in accordance with his ideas. He was soon reduced to poverty. 
Now the value of money naturally assumed great importance, 
because it was, in a manner of speaking, in the unconscious ; 
whereupon he indicted society, which ought to endow him 
with a few hundreds a year, in order that he might express 
4 The italics are mine.— C. E.!L, 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ADAPTATION 203 

himself and repay it with real works of art. However, at a 
later stage a modicum of well-merited success came to him, 
whereupon he declared himself hampered by it. He needs 
must once more burn his boats and go to a new country, 
where he had to begin all over again. To the onlooker this 
conduct is completely irrational, but with this type the accent 
of value always moves to the pole which is in the unconscious. 
They are animated by the pairs of opposites, although without 
the morbid effects that one sees in the neurotic, in whom the 
pairs of opposites are more or less violently torn asunder, and 
in whom regression of the libido to the unconscious is a patho- 
logical condition. Incidentally we owe things of great value to 
this type. They are of more value to us than they are to them- 
selves. They interpret our hidden selves to us, and enlarge 
our perceptions. They have the run of the unconscious, but as 
a gift, and not by personal differentiation. We need only 
instance Shelley's work to recognise that on the creative side 
the type needs no apologist. It is perhaps what might be 
called a feminine type, not that it really belongs more to 
woman than man, but it contains tendencies that are somewhat 
arbitrarily called feminine. 

Those who study the types, 1 come to the conclusion that 
people are even more unlike in their mental or emotional 
reactions on account of type, than on account of sex. They 
can reckon more certainly on the way a person of marked 
type will behave, than on the way he will behave because he 
is a man. There are necessarily certain conventional reactions 
he adopts on account of sex, which do not really belong to 
his individual character at all. 

Philosophers like Bergson and Kidd lay enormous stress 
upon intuition. Indeed, intuition often finds a way where 

1 Dr. Beatrice Hinkle, following in a discussion with G. Stanley Hall, 
Ph.D., on " Points of Difference between Men and Women," said, " A very 
large and intimate analytical experience of the lives of men and women has 
forced me away from thinking of people according to sex, and led me to the 
substitution of types instead. When an individual consults me my collective 
classification is not sexual, but is determined by the answer to my mental 
question: 'To what type does he or she belong?'" "Proceedings," Int, 
Conf. Worn. Phys., New York, vol. iv. 



204 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

every other psychological function fails to find one, the reason 
being that there are times when nothing short of a completely 
new adaptation will serve ; at such a time the primordial 
images, mingled with the other functions, give a value to the 
idea which fits the unique occasion. Kidd says in his " Science 
of Power " : " It is the mind of woman that is destined to take 
the lead in the future of civilisation as the principal instru- 
ment of Power." Personally I think he is mistaken in think- 
ing that the future redemption of the world is with woman 
qua woman. It is rather with the feminine principle, the 
fructifying power of those who will nourish the seed of the 
future in patience, who will submit to the burdens of to-day 
in order that the new era shall arise. Schopenhauer's indict-,-*— 
ment against woman, that " The race is always more to her 
than the individual," is the hostility of the rational intel- 
lectual thinker against the super- validity, on many occasions, 
of the intuitive perceptions which reach beyond the present. 
The psychological bisexuality of the human being permits 
each person to carry within himself a male and female partner ; 
an intellectual v. an intuitive function, a conscious rational v. 
an unconscious non-rational judgment. There is a radical 
hostility between the two, they are pairs of opposites. The 
hostility is constantly projected into consciousness, as in 
Schopenhauer's case. He makes an imago of woman which 
has many of the characteristics of the terrible side of the 
"Great Mother" of mythology. The same is true of Otto 
Weininger. 

Just as this conflict between the sexes has to be resolved 
in the process of individuation, so the opposing psychological 
functions have to be united into a new harmony. Our present- 
day civilisation is tormented with problems for which there 
appears to be no rational solution. Perhaps it is to the more 
primitive function of intuition that we must return, with the 
added wisdom that centuries of scientific thinking have given 
us. We give far too little credit to intuition to-day; no 
doubt this results from the observation that it has sometimes 
misled us. It perceives, but does not judge. Nor is it sense-per- 
ception which leads to consciousness ; it is intuitive perception 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ADAPTATION 205 

which leads to the unconscious. Bergson says, "Although 
intuition transcends intellect, it is by means of intellect that 
it has grown beyond the limits of mere instinct." * 

The study of the primitive has attracted a great amount 
of interest in recent years, perhaps because we unconsciously 
feel we have lost as well as gained something in the process 
of evolution. We half realise in him the prototype of our 
own [subconscious man : a being for whom the unknown is 
full of magic, who can be withered by the evil eye, or stricken 
dead by fear. Dr. Eivers 2 says, There is a general agree- 
ment that in neurosis and psychosis there is in action a 
process of regression to primitive and infantile states. . . . 
In so far as the thought and behaviour of savage man are 
primitive, they furnish material which helps us to understand 
and to deal with regressive states exhibited by sufferers from 
disorder of mental functions." He goes on to say that 
medicine standing alone and ethnolo£v standing alone are 
helpless, but he bases wide hopes upon the union of these 
lines of research. It seems to me that the union will be 
found in a closer and deeper study applied to the unconscious 
mind itself through personal experience of it, but only when 
we can detach ourselves from the idea that we have yet learnt 
all its laws, or even that we have followed to their conclusion 
those we begin to understand. "We certainly need a wider 
conception of the unconscious than that which believes it to 
be only the result of repression. In the view of the uncon- 
scious presented here it would be impossible to acquiesce in 
Dr. Jones's statement that " only what is repressed is symbo- 
lised ; only what is repressed needs to be symbolised." 3 
This is a necessary correlate of the Freudian view of the 
unconscious. 

The existence of the unconscious being regarded by 
science as proved, it is natural that a great controversy should 
range round the question of what it really is. The method of 
research is so new, and the field of inquiry so vast, that we 

1 " Henri Bergson," Kuhe and Paul, p. 225. 
• British Journal of Psychology, ^larch, 1920. 
s " Papers on Psycho-analysis," p. 15-8. 



206 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

must expect different investigators to arrive at different 
interpretations as a result of their particular interests and 
individual psychology. 

Jung's investigations have led him to a formulation which 
is quite different in its ultimate conclusion from Freud's, and 
yet which includes Freud's view as a part. 

•■* Jung divides the unconscious into personal and impersonal 
contents. The impersonal contents form the collective psyche, 
which embraces collective thought and collective feeling x : all 
these contents are universal and impersonal ; they are inherited 
and potentially present in every one. It is the unconditioned, 
undifferentiated basis of all, the " mother foundation " which 
is constantly represented symbolically in myth and dream as 
the " Great Mother," with her double aspect as Destroyer and 
Preserver. 

The conscious and personal unconscious, on the other hand, 
contain certain contents of the collective psyche as personal 
differentiation, that is, as personal acquisitions of the individual 
life as opposed to what is inherited. 

In the personal unconscious, all the lost memories are 
stored. New products arise from a new combination of un- 
conscious contents, of which dreams are a common example. 
In addition to the lost memories and the new combinations, 
intentional repressions of painful and incompatible thoughts 
and feelings form an important part of the contents. This 
may be regarded as the infantile mind, whereas the primitive 
aspects belong to the impersonal unconscious. 

As a correlate to this, and to distinguish the ego contents 
of the collective unconscious from the non-ego contents, the 
Persona, as distinguished from the Individual, is postulated. 
" The persona is an excerpt from the collective psyche." The 
persona was the mask worn by actors through which they 
spoke. The mask constituted the appropriate appearance for 
the part played. The persona, then, is what a man appears to 
be both to himself and others. A man's type determines his 
persona to a great extent; he is as he is by nature. The 

1 "Analytical Psychology," ohaps. xiv. and xv. Also British Journal of 
Psychology, Nov., 1919. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ADAPTATION 207 

individual, on the other hand, is what he becomes, and is the 
product of a life-enduring differentiation from what is general 
and collective and inherited. The persona and the individual 
are, in a sense, pairs of opposites. The idea of the persona 
and the individual comprises as great a difference as that of a 
person and a personage, save that a personage as often as not 
attains distinction by conforming to collective opinion, and 
gaining collective approval ; whereas the individual person 
differentiates himself from what is customary and average, and 
is only approved when he has given an equivalent to Society 
in exchange for the exemptions, licenses, or heresies through 
which he has established his freedom. "The unconscious 
being collective psyche, is the psychological representation of 
Society " * ; the persona has no relation to it, because, being 
itself collective, it is identical with collectivity. Thus the 
persona is both an excerpt and a component of the general 
collective psychological function. As it is obvious we have 
originally nothing but collective material at our disposal, 
what is individual lies in the uniqueness of the combination 
of the psychological elements. If individuation takes place, 
it is subsequent to the dissolution of the persona into the 
collective psyche, whereupon a principle arises that selects 
and limits the contents that shall now be consciously chosen 
to be accepted as individual. Individuation demands the sur- 
passing of the type, first by recognition of what is missing or 
unconscious in the functions ; then by consciously endeavour- 
ing to develop what is lacking, in order to become free from 
the inordinate demands of what is collective in the person- 
ality. 

In the course of analysis, what is unconscious in the mind 
is gradually made conscious. We get deeper and deeper into 
the collective psyche, and phantasies appear which have no con- 
nection with the actual experiences of the person being analysed. 
These phantasies are a "universal possession, dormant from 
immemorial ages,'" thus an impersonal layer of the unconscious 
is demonstrated. Here the "primordial images" are dis- 
covered; they are "the inherited potentialities of human 
1 " Individuation and Collectivity." Jung. (Unpublished MS.) 



208 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

imagination." 1 These form the themes of myths and legends 
all over the world. 

In this stage of the analysis it is not merely that myths 
once heard are reproduced, but a new creation of mythology 
takes place. Similar images are produced by the insane, and 
are found in the oldest of existing human records. " The 
primordial images are quite the most ancient, universal, and 
deep thoughts oi mankind. They are feeling just as much as 
thought, and might therefore be termed thought-feelings." 2 
Or, expressed differently, Jung says the collective unconscious 
is " the sum of the instincts and their correlates the archetypes 
of apprehension." 3 " Just as instinct is the intrusion of an 
unconsciously motivated impulse into conscious action, so 
intuition is the intrusion of the unconscious content of an 
image into conscious apperception. . . . The mechanism of 
intuition is analogous to that of instinct, with this difference, 
that whereas instinct means a teleological impulse towards 
a highly complicated action, intuition means an unconscious 
teleological apprehension of a highly complicated situation. 
Intuition is a counterpart of instinct, not more or less in- 
comprehensible and astounding than instinct itself. 

The archetypes of apprehension are regarded as a priori 
determining constituents of all experience. Just as the 
instincts compel man to a conduct of life which is specifically 
human, so the archetypes coerce intuition and apprehension 
to forms specifically human. 

'■'Just as the instincts are deeply covered over by processes 
of rationalisation, so also are the archetypes of apprehension 
overlaid. But man's conception of the world is just as regular 
and uniform as his instinctive actions. It is the determining 
factor of this latter uniformity which is conceived as the 
archetype, the primordial image. 

K The image might be conceived as intuition of the instinct 
itself, analogous to the conception of consciousness as an 
internal image of our objective vital processes. . . . Just as 

1 • Analytical Psychology." p. £10. 

; Fz-ic., p. ill, 

1 British Journal of Psychology, vol, s., part 1, 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ADAPTATION 209 

we believe instinct to be thoroughly adapted and sometimes 
incredibly clever, so we must assume that intuition, to which 
instinct owes its existence, must be of extraordinary precision." 

The symptoms of neurosis, particularly of compulsion 
neurosis, and the symptoms of insanity, show atavistic 
tendencies, such, for instance, as interest in excreta, which are 
remnants of an adaptation which was entirely suitable at one 
stage of our animal or anthropoid existence. 

In every psychotic state the unconscious gains a super- 
value owing to the regression of libido to the collective 
unconscious, which it reanimates, having first flooded the ego 
feelings and stimulated a painful self-consciousness, in which 
the pairs of opposites, megalomania and feelings of inferiority, 
alternate. When Nebuchadnezzar, identified with the images 
of the unconscious, dwelt among wild asses, and ate grass, he 
responded to the inner compulsion to live his unconscious. 

Jung has pointed out that in the introversion psychosis of 
dementia prsecox, the strange mythological phantasies indicate 
the replacement of "a recent adaptation to reality by an 
archaic one." 1 The libido of these patients is taken from 
the function of reality as a whole, not only from the sexual 
function, which is now replaced by an " intra-psychic equiva- 
lent." 2 What is peculiar to these patients is the " predomi- 
nence of phantastic forms of thought," founded upon a 
pre-occupation of the libido which is applied to the ego, with 
the archetypal forms of thought. 

In hysterical introversion, on the other hand, the libido 
designed for the outer object is introverted, and turns to the 
reanimation of the instincts with the production of auto- 
erotism. In these pathological states it will easily be seen 
that the mechanisms approximate to those we have recognised 
as belonging collectively to the subconscious types, for the 
reason that they are less rational and nearer their instincts 
than the objective types. The adaptation that the objective 
world has demanded from us has necessarily contracted our 

1 See " The Psychology of Dementia Prsecox." Jung. " Psychology of the 
Unconscious," p. 462. 

2 Ibid., 152. 

14 



210 PSYCHOLOGY OF PHANTASY 

horizon to the things which it pays us to attend to, but all the 
same we are aware that when we work in close harmony with 
our instincts we are most efficient and get the best results. 
Hence regression of the libido to the subconscious brings 
about a creation of phantasy which is undoubtedly an attempt 
at self-cure. The complete cure (should it be possible) lies, 
as I have indicated earlier, in a better adaptation to the 
demands of both worlds of reality, which can only be achieved 
when we have learned to discriminate between the real facts 
and the unconscious facts. 



INDEX 



Abbeactios, 165, 170-1 

Absent-minded acts, 27, 83 

Actual neurosis, 160 

Added phantasy, 33 

Adler, 166 

A. E., 112, 177 

Adaptability, 131 

Adaptation, 167 

— , by identification, 201 

— , biological, 195 

— , directed thinking, a function of, 176 

— in war, 128 

— , neurosis, a failure in, 167 
— , psychological, 195 

— to objective and subjective reality, 
111, 119, 196 

— to parents, 65 
Afflicted poet, the, 171 
Aim of analysis, 108 

— of education, 13 
Ambitendency, 171 
Ambivalency, 171 

Amoeba, consciousness in, 111 
Analogical character of dream, 196 
Analogical interpretation, 53 
Analysis of analyst, 126 

— of dream, bluebells and werewolf, 

90-96 

, dragon, 46 

, grave-diggers, 113-16 

, favourite stories, 33, 35 

— of teachers and parents, 39 
Appearance of dead in dream, 100-1 
Archetypes, in collective unconscious, 

147, 208 
— , Lamb on, 146 
Arrested thinking, example of, 49 
Artists' opposing tendencies, 203 

— tvpe, 199 
Asquith, Mr., 193 

Assimilation of new ideas by phantasy, 

193 
Authority complex, 51 

— idol, 44 

Autistic thinking, 176 
Auto-erotism, 133 

14* 



Baptism, 190 

Belle indifference, 85 

Beneficent Mother, 189 

Bergson, cited, 203, 205 

Bernheim, Dr., 162 

Bisexuality, 132, 204 

Blackwood, Algernon, 112 

Bleuler, Dr., 171, 176 

Boswell, quoted note, 176-7 

Bradby, cited, 99 

Brahma, 49 

Breuer, Dr. J., 163-6 

Brock, Glutton, quoted, 202 

Browning, Robert, quoted, 97, 139 

Budge, Wallis, cited, 193 

Bullying, 61 

Butler, Dr. Samuel, quoted, 2, 70-71 

Caedecott Community, 63 

Candle of Vision, 177 

Case of dissociated personality, 179 

hysterical hiccough, 85 

identification with unconscious, 

124 

neurosis at puberty, 36, 177-9 

menopause, 177-9 

phobia of wasps, 35-6 

Censor, Freud's, 79, 111 

— , in dreams, 109 et seq., 122 

— of resistance, 111 
Character always incomplete, 127 

— and sex, 127 
Charcot, 162, 165 
Child and parents, 28, 35, 39, 43, 51, 64 

— and teacher, 11, 51 
Childish attitude, 86 

— phantasies, 155 

— identification with mother, 115 
Christ, 190, 193 
Clare Hartill, 140 
Coitus, symbolic substitute, 120 
Collective psyche, 207 

— unconscious, 16, 147, 206 
College plays, 133 
Common sense, 110 
Commonwealth, Little, 61 

211 



212 



INDEX 



Comparison of symptomatic acts with 

stance, 101 
Compensatory character of neurosis, 167 

unconscious, 84, 97, 122, 145 

Complex, 4, 11, 49, 51, 187, 190 
Compulsion, 4o 

Compulsive acts and thoughts, 177, 201 
Conatus, Prof. J. W. Scott, 130 note 
Condensation in dreams, 105-6 
Constellated memories, 11 
Continuity of mental life, 174 
Conventional morality, 139 
Creative mind, 79, 174 
Criticism in dream, 117 
Cruelty, 61 
Cryptic word, 105 

Da>-e, Clemenee, 137-40 

David's problem, 157 

Day-dreams, 23, S3, 131-2, 177 

Delphic oracle, 116 

Dementia praecox, 209 

Diaphragm between conscious and un- 
conscious, 175 

Differentiation, 207 

Direct questions to child, 28 

primitive, 29 

Directed thinking, 23, 176, 192 

Discipline, 72-3, 61-3 

Discretion in little boys, 29 

Disordered function, ISO 

Disorientation through identification 
with unconscious, 75 

Dissociated personality, 179 

Dream, a cluster of intimate problems, 
112 

— , a dramatisation, 109 

— , a function of the psyche, 195-6 

— , a source of wisdom, 103 

— , a subliminal picture of dreamer, 
103, 120 

— , analogical character of, 196 

— analysed, 46, 88, 90, 100, 113, 116 

— as art and allegory, 97 

— as " schemes or plans," 196 

— as suppressed wish, 111 

— content, manifest, and latent, 86 
— , recurring character in, 104 
Dream cited, anwliwimdwy, 105 

— , Arcbie Hemel Hempsted, 106 

— , Aunt's face falling off, 20 

— , Bond Street tailor, 102 

— , Dragon of, 46 

— , Dolphin's visit, 102 

— , Follow the grave-diggers, 113 

— , Gosse's, 25, 26 

— , Nebuchadnezzar's, 21, 209 

— , Slough of Despond, 85 

— , Travelling by Virginia Creeper, 100 

— , Woman and werewolf, 90 



Dream cited, "Wooden horse, 85 

Dual Mother, 190 

Du Prel, 109 note, 110, 112 

Edeb, Dr. M. D., 3 
Educational system, 71-2, 75 
Emotional curve, 9 
End of analysis, 107 
Energio conception of libido, 131 
Equivalence principle of libido, 184 
" Essays of Elia," 146 note 
European War, effect of, 138 
Evolution of man, 111 
Exhibitionist, S7 
Expulsion from school, 53 
Extr aversion, 55, SO, 173, 197 

— and hysteria, 80 

"Fatheb and Son," quoted, 25, 29, 

cited, 39, 41 
Father-complex, 66, 155 
Father-imago, 44, 171, 186 
Favourite story in analysis, 33, 35 
Fear in child, 57, 40 
Ferenzi, 163 note 
Ferrero Guglielmo, 1S2 
Fertility symbols, 193 
Fictions directrices, 166 
First impressions, importance of, 16 
Flournoy, Dr., 182, 194 
Function du re~el T 187 
Forcing interpretation, 107 
Forgetting, 27 
Frazer, quoted, 120-1 note 
Free association in dream analvsis, 85, 

100 
Freud, cited, 1, 64, 78, 123, 160, 164 et 

seq., 174 
— , quoted, 77-9, 99, 105. Ill, 118, 

120, 156, 164 
Freud's censor, 79, 111, 122 

— classification of neurosis, 160 

— definition of unconscious, 77 

— discovery of key to unconscious, 

130 

— interpretation of dreams, 79 

— preconscious, 77, 111 
Friendship and sex, 143 
Frink, Dr. H. W., cited, 137 
Fngue-like attacks, 179 

Function of dream and phantasy, 196 
Functional symbolism, 119 

God, libido, representation of, ISo 
G-osse, Edmund, 25 et seq, 41-3 

ELlll, G. Stanley, 203 note 
Hallucination, example of, 177 ; Luther, 
87 ; Miss A., case of, 86 



INDEX 



213 



Herd-life, development of individual 

opposed to, 168 
Heredity, 65 
Hermaphroditic character of human 

being, 132 
Hermeneutic method, 92 
Hero, attitude, 57 
— , birth of the, 190 
— , libido personified as. 188 
Hetero-sexuality, 134. 142 
Hiccough, hysterical. Miss A., case of, 

85-7 
Hinkle, Dr. B., 182, quoted, 203 note 
Hobhouse, Prof., quoted, 176 
Homo-sexuality, 133, 137 et seq. ; penal 

code and, 142 
" Hvmn of Creation," Miss Miller's, 

185-6 
Hypnagogic vision, 100, 17 i ; poem, 1S8 
Hypnotism, 79-80, 164-5 ; cure by, 163 
Hvpochondria, 201 
Hysteria, 41, 79, 86-71, 164 
— , not malingering, 172 

iDEyrrFiCAnox, 52, 156, 187, 201 

— -with collectivity, 207 

— with insane, 175 

— -with mother, 95, 115, 178-9 

— with unconscious, 125-6, 175 
Idols, prohibition of, 43 
Imago, 44, 66, 155, 186, 204 

— , of parents, 44, 54-5, 190 
Impersonal unconscious, 16, 78, 183, 

206-7 
Impossible ideals, 74, 97 
Incest barrier, 191 

— motif, 47 

— phantasies. 156 
Individualitv, 60, 95 

— in child, 60 

— versus herd, 168 
Individuation, 71, 207 

Infantile personality, 81, 86, 168, 191-2 
Inferiority, feeling of, 48, 209 
Inheritance, physical and psychical, 65 
International Conference of Women 

Physicians, 127 note, 157 note. 
Interpretation, objective and subjective, 

196 
Introversion, 197 
— , hysterical, SO 
— t neurosis, 19 

— leading to phantasy, 185 

— type, 12, 55-7 
Intuition, 99, 126, 197, 204, 208 
Intuitive type, 55, 201 

Jaices, William, 12 
Janet, Dr. Pierre, 165 
Johnson, Dr., 110, 176 



Jones, Dr. Ernest, quoted, 120, 129, 

160 note, 174, 205 
Judgment in dream, 117 
Jung, cited, 18, 26, 55, 78, 81. 119, 121, 

167, 197 
— , quoted, 15, 23, 103, 107, 122, 137, 

163, 207 et seq. 
Jung's libido theorv, 26, 81, 131, 167, 

1=4 

— " Psychology of the Unconscious," 
132 et seq. 

— psychological types, 12, 55, 173, 196 
et seq. 

— word-association test, 3 et seq. 
Jung versus Freud, re censor, 79 
, interpretation of svmbols, 79, 

119 

, repression, 205 

, unconscious, 78, 206 

Kaflb, greeting to anchor, 176 
Kidd, 203, quoted, 204 
Kleptomania, 45 



Laub, C, quoted, 146 

Lane, Homer, Mr., 61, 72 

Latent content of dream, 22, S6, 196 

La-. VTilfrei. Ph.D.. cited. 1:29 

Libido, 26, 119 

— against unconscious wish, 179 

— available, 131 

— , definitions of, 130 

— , differentiation of, 187 

— , energic conception of, 131 

— , equivalence principle, 131, 184 

— , genetic view of, 187 

— in phantasy, 26, 83 

— , introversion of, 19, 26, 185 

— , Moltzer on, 82 

— , regressive, 132. 167 

— , release of, 97 

— . svmbols of, 85, 184, 186 

— theory, Jung, 81, 119, 167, 184 
— , transformations of, 131, 184 
Llovd, Tuckev, Dr., 162, 163 note 
Llovd George, 193-9 

'•' Loom of Youth," 137-40 
Love conflict, 186 
Lying in children, 27, 58 

Magic, ideas of (Gosse), 42 

— in animal, 93 
Malingering, 172 
Mana, 93, 184 

Manifest content of dream, 22, 86, 116, 

196 
Masochism, 62, 171, 200 
Masturbation, 136-7, 158 
Mayer, Robert, 134 note 
Mediumship, 123-4 



214 



INDEX 



Menopause, neurotic symptoms at, 179 

Mental conflict as sensation, 201 

Meredith, quoted, 4S note, 1-1 

Messages from dead, 124-5 

Miller, Dr. Crichton, 1S1 note 

Miller phantasies, 1S2 et seq. 

Mind of child, 2, 2S, 39 

Moltzer, Miss Maria, quoted, 82 

Mother, as " love," 43 

— , dragon, a personification of, 48 

— , " Great," 48 note, 204, 206 

— , identification with, 123, 178-9 

— , imago, 54 

— , perilously loved, 189 

— , " Terrible," 48, 169, 1S9-90 

Moral instincts, 78 

— meaning in dream, 98 

Murray, Prof. Gilbert, cited, 131 ; 

quoted, 97, 184 
Myers, F. W., cited, 174 ; quoted, 77, 

166 note 
Mysticism, 123, 126 
Mythological dreams of children, 47 
Myths, 168-70, 192-3 

Nation, The, 183 

Nebuchadnezzar's dream, 21, 117, 209 
Neurosis, actual, and psycho-neurosis, 
160 

— as compensation, 167 

— , cause in past and present, 161 
— , compromise formation, 165 
— , failure in adaptation, 167, 195 
— , unconscious conflict in, 167, 173 
Neurotic character, SO 

, childish, 81, S6 

, extra-sensitive, 83 

, phantasies in, 82-4 

— symptoms at puberty and meno- 
pause, 179 

— systems of phantasies, 167 
Nicoll, Dr. Maurice, 97 note, 168 note, 

196 note 
Night terrors, 19, 26, 44 

Object of analysis, 191 

— of study of subliminal material, 10S 
Objective adaptation, 111 

— interpretation, 88, 119, 196 
Occultism, 123 

Oedipus complex, 165 

— myth, 183 

Orientation to parents, 155 
Over-correction of child, 10 
Over-compensation, 45, 153 

Paies of opposites, 3, 171-2, 189, 202, 

209 
Parental influence, 155 -6 

— quarrels, 68 



Parents and children, 43 
Persian poet quoted, 171 
Persona, 191 

— an excerpt, 206-7 

Personal unconscious, 78, 183, 206 

infantile mind, 168 

Peter Pan motif, 20 note, 36 

Pfister, quoted, 176, 187 note 

Phantasy, added, 33 

— , a function of the psyche, 196 

— , allurement of, 24 

— , Anna's, 19 note 

— , birth, 19, 30 

— , child's, 3 

— created by regressed libido, 209- 10 
— , dangers of, 95, 9S 

— , excreta in, 18, 135 
— , Miller, 182 

— of neurotics, S2-4 
Phobia, of murder germs, 201 
Phobias, 80 

Pindar, quoted, 75 
Plotinus, cited, 134 
Pragmatism, 12 
Preconscious, 77, 111 
Pregnancy identification, 177 
Preparation for analvst, 38 
Primitive man, 79, 98, 175, 188 

— thinking. 177 

Primordial images, 191, 200-4, 207-9 
Problem of adaptation, 107 
Projection, 13, 24, 41, 74, 156, 169 
Psyche, functions of, 195-7 
Psychic energy, 1S4 

— life, a continuity, 64 

— streams, 111 
Psychical inheritance, 116 

— Eesearch Society, 7, 83 
Psycho-analysis, 1, 38, 79 
Psychological adaptation, 195 et seq. 

— bisexuality, 204 

— incest, 1S3 

— insufficiency, 165 

— problems, 183 

— types, 12, 55, 173, 197 et seq. 
Psychology of dementia prsecox, 4 note, 

209 note 

— of the unconscious, 182 
Psycho-neurosis, 160 
Psychoses, the, 161 
Puberty, 36, 179 
Pugnacity, 58 

Rationalisation, 19, 68, 154 
Re-animation of unconscious, 209 
Re-birth, 48, 190 

— myth, 168 

Recurring dream character, 103 

Re-education, 39 

" Regiment of Women," 137 



INDEX 



215 



Regression, at puberty, Phyllis, 37 

— in infancy, Anna, 19 

— to mother, 19, 37, 86, 189 
Repression, 17, 76, 78, 136, 154, 165, 

174, 206 
— , Miss Miller's, 187 

— of co-functions, 167, 173, 199 
Resistance, 165, 189 

— against loving, 189 

sexuality, 121 

the new, 193-4 

— in children, 11 
Ribot, quoted, 173 

Riddock, Dr. G., quoted, 180 note 
Riklin, Dr., 3 

Rivers, Dr., quoted, 21 note, 205 
Ruhe and Paul, quoted, 205 note 

Sacbifice of infantile personality, 168, 

192 
Sadism, 62, 171, 200 
Saint Francis, 95 
Schopenhauer, cited, 204 
Secret of culture, 193 
Self-depreciation, 60, 123, 139 

— regulation, 65 
Sense of guilt, 154 

inferiority, 27, 40, 45, 58, 60 

Sex and character, 127 

friendship, 143 

— , confusion of, 148, 152 

— curiosity, 147 
Sex-education, 157 

— — , unconscious factors in, 144 
Sex in dream, 104 

— instruction in class, 144, 157 

— phantasies, 147, 192 

— problems, 132 

— sublimation of, 135-6 
Sexual wish, 191 
Shakespeare, quoted, 148 
Shelley, 202 

Silberer, 119 

Smith, Dr. G. Elliot, quoted, 48 note 

Smythe, Dr. Ethel, quoted, 158 

Spencer and Gillen, quoted, 177 

Spiritualism, 124 

Spitteler, cited, 186 

Spoilt children, 63 

Stoddart, Dr. H. B., quoted, 162 

Stormy childhood, 67-9 

Subconscious types, 199 

Subjective interpretation, 196 

Subliminal material, 105-6 

" Subliminal," Myers, 77 

Swiss School, 107, 119 

Symbolic symptoms, 37, 178, 180, 186 

Symbols, archetypes, 146, 208 

— , civilisation and, 122 

— -, excretions as, 135 



Symbols, fertility, 193 

— , Jones, Dr. E., on, 120, 205 

— , no fixed, 120 

— of analysed person, 103 
analyst, 102 

libido, 86, 187 

parents, 43 

phobia, 37 

qualities, 103 

rebirth, 48, 168, 190 

religion, 190 

— , sexual, 121, 188 
— , stairs, 120, and note 
— , use of, 190 
— , word, a, 5 
Symptomatic acts, 31, 88 
Synthesis in analysis, 80 
Systems of phantasies, 168 

Teachebs and children, 66 

— , bound and free, 68 

— , problem re homo- sexuality, 140 

— , psychology, 9-11 

— , substitutes for parents, 51, 67 

" Terrible Mother," 48, 169, 189-90 

Theft detected by word-association 

test, 5 
Thieving by small boy, 44 
Thinking, arrested, 49 
— , directed and undirected, 23, 176, 

192 
— , totemistic, 98, 176 
Thought, archetypal forms of, 209 
Threshold of consciousness, 110 
Totem animal, 98 
Transference, 73, 163, 187, 190 

— of libido, 193 
Translator, Dr. Hinkle, 194 
Tuckey, Dr. Lloyd, quoted, 162 
Type, development contrary to, 14 
— , names, too abstract, 198 

— , psychology of, 13, 197 et seg_. 
Types, subconscious, 197 et seg. 

Unchaeted region of mind, 97 
Unconscious, acquired, 78 
— , a trickster, 88, 124 

— authority, 74 

— characteristics, Dr. E. Jones, 129 
— , compensatory character of, 84, 97, 

122, 145 

— conflict, 8, 26, 37, 86, 98, 128, 168, 
188, note 

— mind, 2, 16, 77, 128, 145, 174 
— , not educable, 99 

— , not rational, 145 
— , not repression only, 145 
— , prospective meaning, 174 
— , reanimation of, 209 



216 



INDEX 



Unconscious, reflects progress in 
scious, 99 

— transference, 187 

— wish, 19, 37, 179 
Under-expressed ideas, 17, 123 
Undirected thinking, 23, 176 
Unequal development, 36 

Wakojtda, 184 
Waugh, Alec, 137 



Weininger, cited, 204 
Were- wolf in unconscious, 98 
Whipping, sense of humiliation, 59 
Whitman, Walt, quoted, 199, 200 
Wilson, President, 198 
Wish fulfilment, 118 
Women's male psychology, 138 
Word, as symbol, 5 
Word-association test, 3, 31 
Wordsworth, quoted, 47 



THE END 



Printed by William Cloves & Sons, Limited, Becd*s,for Baillilre, Tindall <L Ccz. 
8, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, W.C. •:. 



DEC 131949 



-tp V 



■S V = 



> s . 






■S 









P/.0 X 



^-6* 
























' - 






^ 



, -v. 






.«, 



, B 







v *-■ ■ V 



^. v> ^. \> ^ - 

i 1£L X _ 

HSR:' ~ -- <> -'-==-"- ^ ^ ; m- . .. _~ ^ : --^ = 

4 /~ - ^, ^- 



ss J 



V 




-^ 






V 




5 > 
















